Because in a split second, everything changed.
The whole course of my life.
And his, too.
Because just then my sister walked in, Sarah, and he turned to look at her and he never looked away.
He hasn’t looked away from her since that moment.
So basically, in the last eight years that I’ve known him, he’s only looked at me with his full focus that one time. Since then, his focus has been on my sister.
The love of his life.
I can’t really say for sure if the moment in the kitchen was when I fell in love with him.
I mean, I was freaking cold and scared after my mom’s death. We’d just moved into a new house, a new town. Before then we’d only heard about the Carlisles in passing. We’d never met them because my mom and Leah had always been busy with their careers.
And a boy strangely made me feel warm for the first time in weeks.
I’m pretty sure that meant falling in love in my ten-year-old brain.
But now that I’m older and I have more perspective, I’m not sure. Maybe it happened in the coming days.
When I’d see him come back from his run and dutifully pull out a glass from the cabinet and pour juice in it before drinking. Or when I’d see him cleaning up after himself after each meal, picking up his laundry, his soccer cleats, even though they had a maid who could do those things. Or when I’d see him fix things around the house – especially the heat one day – even though again, they could call a guy if they wanted to.
It made my heart race that even at the age of fifteen, he was the man of the house.
His dad died in a sudden plane crash when he was seven. And in the coming days, I found out that he took that very seriously, his dad’s death, the responsibility that came with it, the fact that he wanted to walk in his father’s shoes.
My own father had left my sister and my mother just after I was born because he couldn’t handle responsibility. So this was all new to me.
I’d never met anyone like Arrow Carlisle before.
Someone who was so serious and determined and focused. Not only around the house but at his school too. On top of being a straight-A student, Arrow was also their soccer superstar.
Honestly though, it isn’t surprising at all because A, Arrow’s dad was a pro soccer player himself.
And B, Arrow would spend hours practicing at the school. He’d spend hours watching game tapes in his room, and sometimes I’d find him dribbling the ball in the backyard, practicing drills and exercising before a big game.
Soccer was and is his life. He was born into it.
So I don’t know when I fell in love with him.
All I know is that when I was falling in love with Arrow, he was falling in love with someone else.
With my sister, Sarah.
And they are perfect for each other.
Perfect.
They’re both the same age.
They are both good-looking and popular. Both of them have high ambitions and goals.
In fact, they’re so perfect for each other, so devoted, that when Leah had objections about her son dating her ward, they did everything to convince her. Leah made rule after rule, gave them strict schedules and ultimatums about grades and hanging out together with their bedroom doors open, and they aced every test she put forth.
Again, not a surprise, they’re both excellent test takers.
They even went to the same college. When Arrow got a scholarship for playing soccer at a college in California, Sarah made sure to end up at the same school. They even picked out an apartment off campus so they could live together.
And when Arrow graduated a semester early – no surprise there; he’s a genius – and got picked the January of last year to go pro and play for the LA Galaxy, they continued their relationship long distance. Not only that, Sarah made sure to complete her degree in Public Relations and follow him to LA, a few months later.
Now, she works with the PR firm that represents Arrow’s team.
See? They’re perfect for each other.
Perfect. Perfect. Perfect.
They’ve conquered every obstacle in their path to get to this point where they have a nice, expensive apartment in LA. He plays the game he loves and she has a bright future in PR.
They belong together.
So where do I fit in?
What is my role here, other than being this evil, witchy girl who wants her older sister’s boyfriend?
I don’t think I have any role except to be the villain in their love story.
The girl who has violated all the codes.
The betrayer.
Who feels warm at the sight of her sister’s boyfriend. Who shivers when he smirks. Whose heart fills with an immense joy when she sees him on TV, scoring a goal and who wants to fly over to him and hug him and tell him how wonderful he is.
How freaking amazing.
Some girls fall in love and a boy catches them. He waits for them at the bottom of the cliff with open arms.
And then there are other girls.
Girls like me.
We’re the girls in love with the boys who belong to someone else. We’re the girls in doomed love.
When girls like us fall, there’s no one to catch us. Least of all that boy for whom we’ve taken the fall.
We’re the girls with secrets and witchy hearts. We’re the girls who listen to sad songs. Who slow dance to them with tears streaming down our faces, even as a smile lingers on our lips. Who cry in our pillows at night and who ride our sunshine-yellow bicycle along the empty, desolate, miserable places, where no one goes.
We’re the girls who run away in the middle of the night.
Like I was doing.
Because I’d overheard a conversation between Leah and him. Well, only Leah’s side of it, but I heard enough to understand that Arrow was getting ready to propose to Sarah. He’d bought a ring and everything.
That’s when I decided to run.
Because they’re getting married.
Married.
I mean, I always knew that they would. But something about the talk of a ring really shook me up.
Arrow was going to propose to my sister.
She would obviously say yes, and they’d have a wedding day. Kids and a family.
Like a voyeur, I’ve been there for every moment of their love story.
I’ve watched them fall in love. I’ve watched them be in love for years. I’ve watched them go out on dates, go to the prom together. I’ve watched them hanging out together in the backyard. I’ve heard them whisper and talk out in the hallway, just by my bedroom. I’ve watched them leave for California. I’ve watched them when they’d come to visit over the holidays.
I’ve watched it all like the worst sister in the world.
I’ve watched him like the worst sister in the world.
I’ve watched him, craved him, loved him in secret.
I’d been the witch long enough. I had to do the right thing and get my toxic presence out of their lives.
Before they got married.
Right that very second.
And that’s why I stole that money and I was running away.
But I got caught and now, I’m stuck here.
Until another opportunity arises.
When it does, I’ll take it. I’ll steal again and I’ll run again.
I’m not a thief but there are worse crimes than stealing money.
There’s no way that I’m staying close to them any longer. And I’m definitely not attending their wedding.
Not at all.
Because aside from the fact that their wedding should be full of people whose hearts are pure, there’s this other thing, this other urge in me.
A very strong urge.
A dangerous urge.
I got it the moment I heard the word ‘ring.’ I got it the moment it dawned on me that he was going to be hers.<
br />
Irrevocably hers.
Forever and ever.
It’s an urge to burn down all my inhibitions of eight years and say: choose me.
Choose me, Arrow.
Pick me.
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking the night I was running away. I was thinking about how badly I wanted to say those words to him.
How badly I wanted him for myself.
How badly I wanted my sister’s boyfriend – soon to be fiancé – for myself.
And God, he’s coming back now and he’s injured.
All I can think about is seeing him in the flesh. Making sure that he’s really okay and if I somehow get to do that, if I somehow get to see him again, who’s to say I wouldn’t act on that urge of mine?
Who’s to say I wouldn’t try to ruin their relationship?
I’m already in love with my sister’s boyfriend. I’m already so corrupt and despicable. I’m already so hopelessly in love.
Who’s to say I wouldn’t take it one step further and try to steal him away from her?
So I need to stay away from him.
I need to control myself like I’ve done for the past eight years.
Which is why tonight, I’m breaking a big, huge rule of St. Mary’s.
Because the alternative is that I sit in my dorm room and cook up scenarios about how to steal my sister’s boyfriend.
This rule that I’m breaking though will definitely banish all my privileges.
But even the thought of that can’t deter me – or Callie, Poe and Wyn – from doing what we’re doing.
Sneaking out to a bar to go dancing.
It’s a whole process, too.
You have to go to bed, wearing what you will for going out, so when the time comes to actually sneak out, you don’t go around hunting for clothes and waking up your roommate.
Then you have to stack all your pillows under the blanket so even if your roommate does wake up at some point while you’re away, she can see your dark silhouette and suspect nothing.
After that, you tiptoe out of the room at a specified time and slowly, carefully walk down the darkened hallway so as to not alert the 24/7 warden, who sits all the way in the front at reception with her TV going.
If someone does intercept you, you say you’re going to the bathroom. Hence you can’t wear anything too flashy so the lie looks convincing.
Once you’ve reached the end of your hallway, you take a left, and you come upon a heavy metal door with a red EXIT sign on it. That’s where all your friends will be waiting for you.
That’s where Poe, who’s done this a million times in the past because she’s been here since her sophomore year, will jiggle the latch in a precise manner that will get the door open. And Callie who’s also done this a million times before because like Poe she’s been here since sophomore year will usher me out into the night. Then Wyn, who’s been here since her junior year, will carefully wedge a rock between the door and doorjamb so we can get back in easily.
Then, we’ll run and fly through the massive expanse of green grounds that surround the campus to get to a very special spot on the brick fence. This spot has dents and gaps, big enough that we can rest our feet in and scale the wall to get to the other side.
And so, ten minutes after we’ve broken out of our dorm building, we’re making our way through the woods, in the middle of which our reform school sits, to get to the highway.
Poe has already arranged for a cab through her phone when we were in the third-floor bathroom.
How did she pay for it though, the cab I mean? She also has a secret credit card that she stole before coming to St. Mary’s, and if she uses it in a very limited capacity, charges sort of go unnoticed. Or at least they have so far.
And how are we going to get into a bar even though we’re underage? That’s Callie’s department. She says that the bartender at this particular bar is a friend and he’ll let us in as long as all we do is dancing and no drinking.
I don’t care about that.
I don’t want to drink. I don’t want to dance either.
I’m not sneaking out for any of that.
I’m sneaking out because my heart is witchy and I have dangerous urges.
The bar that we’re at is called Ballad of the Bards.
I’ve heard of it, actually. It’s a bar famous for its love songs. Meaning they don’t play the regular, dancing music. They play the music of the bards, the poets. The songs of sad love and misery.
I’ve always wanted to go here. It’s at the border of the town of St. Mary’s and another town called Bardstown. And since I was sorta happy to know that we were coming here, I even let them put lipstick on me, on the way over.
“Every girl deserves a little lip lovin’,” said Poe, while painting my lips with Teenage Decay, which is a dark coral color.
It reminds me of the sun.
It reminds me of him.
With that on my lips, I feel like he’s close.
He might as well be. The press conference was a couple of days ago. We, at St. Mary’s School for Troubled Teenagers, move slower than the rest of the world.
Maybe he’s already back.
Maybe he’s in town right now.
And maybe…
Okay, stop thinking about him.
Stop.
But I don’t think that’s possible.
At all.
Because as soon as we enter the bar and glance around the industrial-looking space with low-hanging light bulbs, rough brick walls and metal beams, I catch sight of something.
A baseball cap.
It’s too dark in here to tell the color of it.
But I don’t need the light in order to do that. I know what color it is.
It’s gray.
Like all the other things in his life – his workout sneakers, his soccer cleats, his sweaters, his sweatpants.
His t-shirts.
Yeah, he has a bunch of gray t-shirts.
In fact, I’m wearing one now, under my chunky sweater, his t-shirt that I stole.
It was a long time ago, back when he’d just moved to California for college. I went into his room and snooped and well, snitched a couple of his t-shirts that he’d left behind.
Anyway, the point is that he likes gray.
And that he’s taken to wearing a baseball cap ever since he went pro, so as to have a bit of privacy in these parts where they worship soccer more than any other sport, and hence him.
So I know that baseball cap.
I know.
The bar is super crowded though, jam-packed with bodies and saturated with the smell of liquor and foggy smoke. So it’s not as if I can see very clearly.
But my witchy heart tells me that it’s him.
Even though it’s impossible that it could be him.
Because he should be at home, with Sarah. I’m assuming she’s back too since Arrow is here.
Sarah is always where Arrow is; they’re inseparable.
Besides, bars are not his scene anyway. Anything that interferes with his practice and training is a definite no-no. Which means he very rarely drinks and never stays out partying.
But I have to see.
I have to confirm.
Callie is introducing us all to her friend who let us in, Will the bartender, but I murmur a distracted excuse and leave them. I’ll explain everything later. Like, in five minutes when I’m back after confirming that it’s really not him.
And then, I’m standing there.
I’m standing at a place – in the middle of the bar – where I have a clear view of the baseball cap and the one who’s wearing it.
He’s tucked away in a corner, the owner of the cap, partially hidden behind a bricked pillar.
Although tucked away is a misleading description.
He’s too big and tall to be tucked away anywhere, much less in a makeshift corner of a bar.
In realit
y, he’s bursting out of there, that nook, his shoulders specifically.
His shoulders.
My heart leaps at the sight of those shoulders. They are broad but not overly massive. They’re sleek, and even through the layers of clothes they appear sculpted and muscular.
Like his.
But that’s not the thing that gets me, no.
Not the shoulders that could only belong to him or the baseball cap that hides the good view of his face, it’s the layers of clothing that he has on.
One layer specifically.
A vintage leather jacket.
It’s black. Well, it’s so old now that it’s weathered and gray.
I love it.
I love how dashing it makes him look. How handsome. I love the vibe it gives off, dangerous and daredevil-ish.
And he wears it all the time when he rides his motorcycle.
Yeah, he has a motorcycle.
Despite all the ways that he is so careful and disciplined because of his sport, he rides a Ducati.
Or at least, he used to.
Back when he still lived in St. Mary’s.
When he left it all behind after leaving for California though, I was devastated. I bet Sarah told him to. She never liked his bike and his jacket.
I cried for the Ducati he left in the garage, covered up with a white sheet. I cried for his vintage leather jacket that I never really knew what he did with. It wasn’t in his closet – I checked.
So seeing it now, it hits me like a storm.
No, not like a storm.
The sight of that leather jacket explodes in my stomach and sends warmth rushing through my veins.
Warmth and coziness.
It’s him.
It’s my Arrow.
God, he’s here.
Here.
I press a hand on my stomach as a breath escapes me and my lips tug up into a smile.
But my smile doesn’t reach fruition.
My lips stop midway when I realize something.
I realize that his face is dipped.
It’s dipped toward someone. A girl whose back is facing me.
For a second I think it’s Sarah.
It has to be. Who else would it be, honestly?
But it’s not her.
The girl Arrow is looking at isn’t Sarah.
Because Sarah doesn’t have blonde hair. Her hair is dark like mine. Only my hair is curly – wild and savage – and hers is straight and shiny. But we at least have the exact same shade.
My Darling Arrow Page 3
