“And here, behind that ancient door, is my room,” I announced and waited for Claire to tear her eyes away from the red carpet which was covering the marble floor. “Please, promise me not to be shocked again.” I stepped aside, making way for her to cross the threshold. How my hands were itching to lift her up and carry her across instead, but I forced myself to be patient. A gesture like that would leave too much room for interpretation.
Claire’s eyes swept from the balcony door, across the dark wooden floor, to my wrought iron bed.
She took a moment to appreciate the carvings on my desk as she leaned against it, facing me.
“I don’t think I could live here. I would never find my way outside again.”
“You get used to it,” I laughed. She felt comfortable here in my room, I could tell. It was there in her emotions along with the feeling of belonging. I suppressed a sigh of gratitude. It could have been so much more difficult.
“You know what? I like it here,” she confirmed what I was perceiving.
“I know.” I joined her at the desk and ran my fingers through the dunes of her hair. “I feel it.”
She stiffened beside me just enough to make me worry I had said something wrong.
“What’s Ben’s problem with me?”
Good. It hadn’t been me. It had been Ben who had upset her.
“I’m not exactly sure. I’m positive that it’s got more to do with me than with you,” I tried to make her feel better. It must have been difficult for her…
“Why didn’t he talk to me then?”
“Hm—”
“You are the expert on other people’s feelings here,” she joked, but it was clear she was hiding she was hurt.
“I know, I know. I received his feelings when he first saw you.” I thought of the attraction and then the jealousy.
“And?”
Did I have to say it? Her gaze implied she wouldn’t leave it alone until I told her, so I gave her what she wanted, unable to deny her any wish.
“And it felt like he felt kind of attracted to you.”
“Oh.”
She sat down on my bed and chewed on her nails, a sequence of emotions running through her, all dominated by confusion.
“Why the hostility then?”
“From what I could perceive, he must have been disappointed that he hadn’t met you before me …whatever. I won’t let him get a chance now,” again I spoke my mind against better judgment. She should know that I was going to make sure Ben would never get a chance.
With a quiet sigh of frustration, I joined her on the bed, unable to only watch her from a distance. I needed to be close to her to protect her.
Claire smiled at me as I twined my fingers with hers. “I must admit that Ben really is good looking.” Her free hand touched my forehead and ran across my cheek and my lips. “But nothing compared to you.”
Satisfaction spread through Claire for a second as my cheeks became crimson under her fingers. Her face was smug, as if she had achieved a goal she had been working toward for a while. Then the deep longing set in and swallowed both of us. I leaned back and pulled her with me onto the sheets, letting her cuddle up against me. She inhaled deeply and her emotions were back in check, something I couldn’t say about my own.
“Tell me something about your family. What do they do?” she surprised me with an actual question, and I worked hard to not feel her soft curves against my side.
“Well, my mother is a violinist. Years ago she played many concerts all over the world, but then she met my father and became pregnant with Ben.” Talking about my family helped ease the desire.
“Doesn’t she play at all anymore?”
“For herself mostly and every now and then a concert somewhere in the U.S.”
“Why?”
“She always says she doesn’t want to miss any time with her family. And as I have already lost a mother…she wants to be there.” It was difficult to share this with people, but Claire wasn’t just anyone. She was special, she deserved the truth.
“You lost your mother?” Compassion was there in her voice and in her emotions, but there was more. A deep understanding of what it was like to have lost a parent. I felt she understood.
“My mother died during my birth. So Jenna’s only my stepmother and I’m an adult already…but still, she loves me like a son, or so she says,” I tried to make it sound less tragic but I couldn’t fool Claire. She was feeling my pain almost as if she could read emotions herself.
“She once told me that when she met my father for the very first time, he was holding me in his arms. I was one-and-a-half years old then. It was in a cafe, he was kind of arguing with an old man. ‘You need to find a mother for the poor child. No man can bring up a child on his own,’ the old man said again and again, and she saw that my father was wearing no wedding ring. My father turned around and laid his arm around her shoulders and said, ‘Excuse me, will you become the mother of my child?’” I chuckled, visualizing my dad in the coffee shop and Jenna’s face. “Naturally, she was shocked, but something in his eyes made her wish for his request to be serious. She always says she was looking at the two of us and instantly fell in love with my father.”
Claire dug her face into my shoulder hiding her expression. Whether she found the story strange or nice, I couldn’t tell. “Weird story, I know. But still, they got married a year later and had Ben another nine months afterward.”
“No, it’s a good story…a bit sappy, but that’s material for a big Hollywood love story. Write it down and sell it to Warner Studios.” She pulled herself up and watched me as I dreamt of how she would have reacted had our first encounter gone like that. “It’s just that nobody would believe it. But I like kitschy things.” She gazed deep into my eyes, and I lost myself in the bluish waters, searching for every fear or pain that had ever haunted her, and every joy and happiness that had shaped her into a person so capable of love.
“So, your father?” she put us back on track, eyes unblinkingly studying my face.
“My dad is a professor of history at the college. He collects books and antiquities in his spare time. The book he gave you is one he recently bought in London from an antiquarian.”
“And that’s why you live in this posh palace?”
“No, the house is an inheritance from Jenna’s family. But yes, my father definitely enjoys the historic flair.” She wanted to know every detail about my life the same as I wanted to know about hers. It was a good thing. Her face was saying the same thing her emotions were. She was finally letting down her guard and trusting me enough to be herself. I caressed her face with my hand, touched by how things were progressing. She intercepted it, glancing at my watch.
“Half past eight,” I said, eager for her to turn her eyes back to mine.
Claire shook her head unwillingly and curled back against me, asking for more stories about my family and how Jenna had gotten the estate. Lenard Mansion had been named after Jenna’s great-grandfather, William Lenard, who had been the son of a rich European family that had come to America. It was a mystery where the money had come from and why he had settled in this specific area in the late eighteenth century.
It had gotten dark around us and Claire’s face was hidden in shadows. I sat up and turned on the small lamp on the bedside table.
“Wow, it’s late.” My watch showed ten and being close to Claire all afternoon made me reluctant to let her go now. It didn’t help as she tugged on my shirt, attempting to pull me back onto the sheets. It would be so easy to give in, keep her here and let the night take us wherever it would lead, but my better judgment set in and convinced me that I hadn’t been working on my patience, just to let it go today. I was just gaining Claire’s full trust, and I wanted her to be ready whenever we would go there.
I reached into my pocket, pulling out the velvet box with the bracelet I had gotten for Claire a while ago. Today was a special occasion. “By the way, I got you a present, too.”
She let go of my shirt, sur
prise on her face and in her feelings, and took the box instead.
“Thanks. That wasn’t necessary—really.”
“Will you open it?” I wanted to witness the look on her face when she saw the bracelet, to see if she liked it, but she shook her head.
“Not now. Later.” There was a bit of awkwardness there in her aura. She knew I would know if she lied about liking it, whether she opened it now or later, but I respected her wish and took the opportunity to convince her it was time to call it a night.
“I’ll drive you home, then.”
My heart broke a little bit at the thought of not seeing her for at least fifteen hours and so I gave in willingly as she objected with a weak resemblance of a fight in her eyes. I knew whatever I asked this moment, I would get it. And so I didn’t ask anything, reminding her of school the next day. She was reasonable—even if her mood swings sometimes let me think otherwise. She would make the right choice. I smiled.
Claire pulled herself back against me and kissed me once before grinning at me, dazed. “But I get at least a million goodnight kisses,” she bargained, reluctantly letting me pull her to her feet, both of us not nearly ready to end the evening.
“Whatever it takes to make you happy, Claire.”
13
Transformation
I wasn’t exactly thrilled to see Sporty flanking the girls when they exited the building. He, now more than ever, seemed to be biding his time until I disappeared from the picture, a cloud of admiration for Claire floating around him as to confirm my thought.
They were discussing something intensely, Lydia and Amber more engaged than Claire, whose eyes found me easily in the emptying lot.
“Adam!” Her voice alone made my heart beat faster and I found myself rushing toward her as she broke away from the group, apparently forgetting she was still part of their conversation. With a simple kiss, I confirmed she was still there, she was real.
“Hey Adam, long time no see,” Sporty threw at me as if he’d rather it had stayed that way. I had to swallow a laugh of irony. The way he felt for Claire was sincere and yet there was a possessiveness in there which only a spoiled, rich boy could show toward a girl.
I unglued my lips from hers to meet Gregory’s glare, which he had perfected over the past weeks, and pulled out my coldest expression. My arms automatically tightened around Claire, and another emotion hit me. Not Sporty’s jealousy. Not Claire’s affection. It was shame. I myself was acting the very same way I despised so much in Gregory’s demeanor. I was possessive of Claire, now that I had found her and won her heart, and I wasn’t ready to let anything come between us.
“What is it?” she wanted to know with a whisper.
I couldn’t focus on her yet. Sporty’s feelings for her were jumping at my face and it took all my self-control to not let him fuel my competitiveness.
Claire’s hand on my cheek broke the spell and helped me drown out the flood of emotions in the parking lot.
“Hey—what’s the matter?” she repeated in a quiet voice.
Her innocence and her concern for her friend caught me off guard. In no way could she understand how Gregory felt for her and I wasn’t sure if I wanted her to know. Who knew, one day he might convince her. It was obvious where he was headed. He was just biding his time until I made a mistake and Claire might get susceptible toward his intentions. I focused on her eyes—her pretty blue eyes, a shade of turquoise as she looked into the sun—and they were telling me, even more than the emotions enveloping me from her direction, that she couldn’t bear the thought of me fighting her friend.
“I’ll just leave the happy couple alone, then,” Sporty Guy made his exit without missing a chance to provoke me.
Don’t react. He doesn’t know any better. It was true. He was just a young boy. Not that I was that much older, but since I had started perceiving people’s emotions, I felt like I had aged a couple of lifetimes. It was as if I had seen it all—felt it all…
We had to get out of there before anyone else could give me a new reason to get upset. Over the past weeks, I had figured out that I couldn’t live without using my ability to read emotions, but sometimes I wondered how exactly it was beneficial for me or my psyche. If it made me a better person or if it made me dangerous. With a deep breath, I let my struggles retreat into the back of my mind and kissed Claire before she had a chance to read them from my face. I placed a kiss on her lips and took her hand lightly—at least that was how it felt to me, but at the back of my head I wondered if my perception was off when it came to what was gentle and what was rough. My strength seemed to have improved almost as much as my stamina and sometimes my hands were hard to control. Cautioning myself to be extra gentle, I helped Claire into the passenger seat and I jumped in on the driver side.
“What was that about?” She caught me off guard. Had I hurt her? Did I need to try even harder? All of those supernatural things were the reason we had been apart and I had suppressed my nature—tried to—for so long. Then Sporty’s car caught my eye as he drove off a bit too fast for my taste and I was back on track with the conversation.
“It’s not only that he loves you…I could live with that,” I admitted. Who could blame any man for falling in love with innocent Claire? “He is going to fight for you.” That, on the other hand, I could blame him for. I ground my teeth and put the key in the ignition.
“What. Are. You. Talking. About?”
Was she playing naive? Or was it simply that she wanted to hear me state the obvious? “Greg is in love with you.”
She blinked at me. “I know—so what?”
She knew. Of course, she knew. She might not be able to read emotions, but she spent every day of school with Sporty. There was no way he hadn’t hit on her.
“He is going to fight for you,” I let the words slide out between my teeth, disgruntled about their meaning and reluctant to have to share. But then, I had sworn myself to be honest with Claire, so I wouldn’t lose her—again.
“Is this a fact or are you guessing?” She blushed.
“Both.” I tried to sound nonchalant. No matter how much it annoyed me that Sporty had feelings for her, it wouldn’t be good to let her see how it affected me. How it worried me, that she might remember how I am different and how scared she had been in the beginning. And there it was. I couldn't be as truthful as I wanted.
“Which means?” she challenged as if she was making me explain on purpose.
“I felt him feel about you, and then about me.” It was difficult to say it out loud, to be this specific about what I had perceived from Sporty. “He loves you, he’s jealous, he hates me. Or do you think he had that particular sequence of feelings randomly?”
Claire didn't answer. Instead, she exhaled in a gust that made me worry if she was still following the conversation or if she had taken a turn somewhere that had carried her down an alternate reality.
“I don’t think so,” I made clear I was still on the topic and that I wasn't going to ignore it. “It’s more likely that he really was jealous.”
Claire blinked her eyes and looked at me as if I was being absurd. “And what’s the problem with that? So he’s got a crush on me …that passes by. I don’t care. He’s my best friend, and I think he wants me to be happy.”
I ground my teeth. So, she was naive, but right now it seemed her way of ignoring Sporty’s intentions would become a problem at some point—not only for her.
As she observed the motion of my jaw, she realized something I thought I’d been successfully hiding and burst out in laughter.
“You are jealous, too.”
Was I being that obvious? I hid a frown and focused on the keys as I turned them in the ignition. The sound of the engine distracted me from her continuing chuckle. Why exactly did my rational side have to give way to my emotions when I was with her? My hands grabbed the steering wheel for support.
“Am I right?”
I sighed. Did I really have to say it out loud? This was torture.
“So what if I am?”
A gentle hand touched mine and pulled it toward her, cradling it between her fingers, soothing the ache a little.
“You know there is no reason for you to be jealous.”
“Do I?”
“Yes. Or at least you should.”
I trusted her, but did I trust Sporty? He could easily mislead her, using her trust to reach his goal.
“But I know how very comfortable you feel with him. It’s like you feel you belong there.”
Claire’s face was still amused but her eyes were serious.
“I do. He’s my best friend. He’s one of the few people I can trust. It’s only natural I want him around.”
There was nothing but sincere honesty there in her words. A veil of emotions washed over me—affection, admiration, love…and I couldn't focus on why I had been worried a second ago. All that mattered was that she was here with me because she wanted to be. She might want him around because he was a good friend, but I was the boyfriend, and I would do anything to be the boyfriend she deserved.
“I don’t want to lose you,” I admitted and felt like an apology would be exactly what that boyfriend she deserved would give her right now. “You are so precious to me, I’m never going to let anyone hurt you. Sorry, I behaved so stupidly. It’s inexcusable.”
Claire didn't laugh at me like Maureen might have at a heartfelt statement like this, instead, she gave me a smile which let me guess she had already forgiven me.
It didn’t surprise me. After all this time, with all those difficulties we’d had because of me and my strange abilities, she was still one of the most gracious people I knew. I caught Claire staring at me as I smiled to myself.
“What’s so funny?” she wanted to know, raising her eyebrows as if she was observing an object in an exhibition.
That was something I couldn’t answer without bringing up all the heaviness from the weeks of me fighting my nature, so I simply shook my head.
When we arrived at her place, the smell of food greeted us in the entrance hall.
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