“Yeah, probably.”
“Maybe I should try to look more pathetic. If that’s what Edythe is into.”
“Go for it.”
“It won’t take her long to get bored with you, I bet.”
My façade slipped for a second. He caught the change and grinned, a little smug.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m sure you’re right.”
Ms. Varner showed up then, and the general chatter started to die down while she began writing equations across the board.
“You know what, though?” Jeremy said under his breath. “I think I’d rather be with a normal girl.”
I was already irritated. I didn’t like the way he talked about Edythe in general, and the way he said normal really bugged me. No, Edythe wasn’t normal, but that wasn’t because, like his tone seemed to imply, she was something… off or wrong. She was beyond normal, above it. Surpassing it by so much that normal and Edythe weren’t even on the same plane of existence.
“That’s probably for the best,” I muttered in a hard voice. “Keep your expectations low.”
He shot me a startled look, but I turned to face the teacher. I could feel him staring at me suspiciously again, until Ms. Varner noticed and called on him for an answer. He started flipping spastically through his book, trying to figure out what she’d asked him.
Jeremy walked ahead of me on the way to Spanish, but I didn’t care. I was still annoyed. He didn’t talk to me again until the end of class when I started shoving my books—a little too enthusiastically—into my backpack.
“You’re not sitting with us at lunch today, are you?”
His face was suspicious again, and more guarded now. Obviously, he’d thought I’d be eager to show off, to sell Edythe out to make myself look cooler. After all, Jeremy and I had been friends for a little while. Guys told each other this kind of stuff. It was probably part of the man code thing I’d invented. He’d assumed my loyalty would be with him… but now he knew he was wrong.
“Um, not sure,” I said. No point in being overconfident. I remembered too clearly what it felt like whenever she disappeared. I didn’t want to jinx myself.
He walked off without waiting for me, but then he did a little stutter step and paused on the threshold of the classroom.
“Seriously, what the hell,” Jeremy said loud enough that I could hear him—as did everyone else within a ten-foot radius.
He glanced back at me, shook his head, then stalked away.
I was in a hurry to get out the door—to see what that was about—but so was everyone else. One by one, they all stopped to look back at me before exiting. By the time I got out, I didn’t know what to expect. Irrationally, I was half-expecting to see Taylor in a sparkly prom dress and tiara.
But outside the door to my Spanish class, leaning against the wall—looking a thousand times more beautiful than anyone had a right to—Edythe was waiting for me. Her wide gold eyes looked amused, and the corners of her lips were right on the point of smiling. Her hair was still coiled up in that messy twist, and I had the oddest urge to reach down and pull the pins out of it.
“Hello, Beau.”
“Hi.”
Part of me was aware we had an audience, but I was past caring.
“Hungry?” she asked.
“Sure.” Actually, I had no idea if I was. My whole body felt like it was being electrocuted in a strange and very pleasant way. My nerves couldn’t process more than that.
She turned toward the cafeteria, swinging her bag into place.
“Hey, let me get that for you,” I offered.
She looked up at me with doe eyes. “Does it look too heavy for me?”
“Well, I mean…”
“Sure,” she said. She slid the bag down her arm and then held it out to me, very deliberately using just the tip of her pinkie finger.
“Er, thanks,” I said, and she let the strap fall into my hand.
I guess I should have known it would be twice as heavy as my own. I caught it before it could hit the sidewalk, then hefted it over my free shoulder.
“Do you always bring your own cinder blocks to school?”
She laughed. “Archie asked me to grab a few things for him this morning.”
“Is Archie your favorite brother?”
She looked at me. “It’s not nice to have favorites.”
“Only child,” I said. “I’m everyone’s favorite.”
“It shows. Anyway, why do you think that?”
“Seems like you talk about him most easily.”
She thought about that for a moment but didn’t comment.
Once we were in the cafeteria, I followed her to the food line. I couldn’t help staring at the back corner of the cafeteria the way I did every day. Her family was all present and accounted for, paying attention only to each other. They either didn’t notice Edythe with me, or they didn’t care. I thought about the idea Jeremy had come up with—that Edythe and I were seeing each other in secret to keep it from her family’s notice. It didn’t look like she was hiding anything from them, but I couldn’t help but wonder what they thought about me.
I wondered what I thought about them.
Just then Archie looked up and smiled across the room at me. Automatically, I smiled back, then glanced down to see if he’d actually meant the smile for Edythe. She was aware of him, but she wasn’t responding in kind. She looked sort of angry. My eyes cut back and forth between the two of them as they had some kind of silent conversation. First, Archie smiled wider, showing off teeth so white they were bright even across the length of the room. Edythe raised her eyebrows in a sort of challenge, her upper lip curling back just a tiny bit. He rolled his eyes to the ceiling and held his hands up like he was saying I surrender. Edythe turned her back to him and moved forward in the line. She grabbed a tray and started loading it up.
“I’m pretty close with all my family, but Archie and I do have the most in common,” she said, finally answering my question in a low voice. I had to duck my head down to hear her. “Some days he’s really annoying, though.”
I glanced back at him; he was laughing now. Though he wasn’t looking at us, I thought he might be laughing at her.
I was paying so much attention to this little exchange that I didn’t notice what she had on the tray till the lunch lady was ringing us up.
“That’ll be twenty-four thirty-three,” she said.
“What?” I looked down at the tray and then did a double take.
Edythe was already paying, and then gliding off toward the table where we’d sat together last week.
“Hey,” I hissed, jogging a few steps to catch up with her. “I can’t eat all that.”
“Half is for me, of course.”
She sat down and pushed the overflowing tray to the center of the table.
I raised my eyebrows. “Really.”
“Take whatever you want.”
I sank into the seat across from her, letting the dead weight of her bag slide to the floor with mine. At the other end of the long table, a group of seniors watched her with wide eyes.
“I’m curious. What would you do if someone dared you to eat food?”
“You’re always curious.” She made a face, then daintily tore the tip off a piece of pizza, popped it in her mouth, and started chewing with a martyred expression. After a second, she swallowed, then gave me a superior look.
“If someone dared you to eat dirt, you could, couldn’t you?” she asked.
I grinned at her. “I did once… on a dare. It wasn’t so bad.”
“Somehow, I’m not surprised. Here.” She shoved the rest of the pizza to me.
I took a bite. I wondered if it really tasted like dirt to her. It wasn’t the best pizza I’d ever had, but it was decent. While I was chewing, she glanced over my shoulder and laughed.
I swallowed quickly. “What?”
“You’ve got Jeremy so confused.”
“Tough.”
“He really let his
mind run wild when he saw you get out of my car.”
I shrugged and took another bite.
She tilted her head to the side. “Do you truly agree with him?”
I had to swallow fast again, and I almost choked. She half-rose, but I held my hand up and recovered. “I’m fine. Agree with him about what?”
“Why I’m here with you.”
It took me a minute to think through the conversation. I remembered things I hoped she hadn’t been paying attention to—like the fact that apparently everyone knew I’d been obsessed with her from day one.
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
She frowned. “Obviously, it’s just some pity thing?” she quoted.
I was surprised that she looked irritated. “It’s as good an explanation as any.”
“And I’ll be getting bored soon, will I?”
That one stung a little—this was my biggest fear, and it seemed all too likely—but I tried to hide it with another shrug.
“Beau, you’re being ridiculous again.”
“Am I?”
She smiled a funny half-smile, half-frown. “There are several things I am currently worried about. Boredom is not one of them.” She cocked her head to the side, her eyes drilling into mine. “Don’t you believe me?”
“Um, sure, I guess. If you say so.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Well, that was an overwhelming affirmative.”
I took another bite of pizza, chewing slowly and deliberately this time. She waited, watching me with the intense little scowl that I knew meant she was trying to get inside my head. When I took a second bite without speaking, she blew an angry breath out her nose.
“I truly loathe it when you do that.”
I took a second to swallow. “What? Not tell you every single stupid thought that passes through my head?”
I could tell she wanted to smile, but she didn’t give in. “Precisely.”
“I don’t know what to say. Do I think you’ll get bored with me? Yeah, I do. I honestly don’t know why you’re still here. But I was trying not to say that out loud, because I didn’t want to point something out that you might not have thought of yet.”
The smile escaped. “So very true. I never would have realized it myself, but now that you mention it, I really ought to be moving along. That Jeremy suddenly seems alluringly pathetic—” And then she cut off and the smile vanished. “Beau? You know that I’m joking.”
I wondered what my face was doing. I nodded.
Her forehead creased. After a second, she hesitantly stretched her arm across the table toward me, leaving her hand in easy reach.
I covered it with mine.
She smiled, but then she winced.
“Sorry,” I said, pulling away.
“No,” she objected. “It’s not you. Here.”
As carefully as if my hand were blown from the thinnest glass, she rested her fingers on my palm. Copying her caution, I folded my hand gently around them.
“What was wrong just now?” I half-whispered.
“Many different reactions.” Her forehead wrinkled again. “Royal has a particularly strident mental voice.”
I couldn’t help it; I automatically glanced across the room, and then was very sorry I had.
Royal was glaring daggers at Edythe’s unprotected back, and Eleanor, across from him, was turned around to glower at Edythe, too. When I looked, Royal shifted his furious eyes to me.
My eyes darted to Edythe, the hair standing up on the back of my arms, but she was glaring back at Royal now, her upper lip pulled back off her teeth in a menacing scowl. To my surprise, Eleanor turned around at once and Royal dropped his threatening stare. He looked down at the table with a suddenly sulky expression.
Archie looked like he was enjoying it all hugely. Jessamine never turned.
“Did I just piss off—” I swallowed before I could finish. A bunch of vampires?
“No,” she said fiercely, then sighed. “But I did.”
I glanced at Royal again for a fraction of a second. He hadn’t moved. “Look, are you in trouble because of me? What can I do?” The memory of his livid eyes trained on her small body had a wave of panic rolling through me.
She shook her head and smiled. “You don’t need to worry about me,” she reassured me, a little smug. “I’m not saying that Royal couldn’t take me in a fair fight, but I am saying that I never have fought fair and I don’t intend to start now. He knows better than to try anything with me.”
“Edythe…”
She laughed. “A joke. It’s really nothing, Beau. Normal sibling issues. An only child couldn’t understand.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.”
I looked at our hands, still folded so very carefully together. It was the first time I’d really held her hand, but wrapped up in the wonder of that was the memory of why she’d offered it to me in the first place.
“Back to what you were thinking,” she said, as if she could read my thoughts.
I sighed.
“Would it help if you knew you weren’t the only one who had been accused of obsession?”
I groaned. “You heard that, too. Great.”
She laughed. “I was entranced from start to finish.”
“Sorry,” I said.
“Why are you apologizing? It makes me feel better to know I’m not the only one.”
I stared at her, skeptical.
“Let me put it this way.” She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Though you are the one person I can’t be sure about, I’d still be willing to place a very large wager that I spend more time thinking about you than you do about me.”
“Ha,” I laughed, startled. “You would totally lose that bet.”
She raised an eyebrow and then spoke so low that I had to lean in to hear. “Ah, but you’re only conscious for roughly sixteen hours in any given twenty-four-hour period. That gives me quite a lead, don’t you think?”
“You’re not factoring in dreams, though.”
She sighed. “Do nightmares count as dreams?”
Red started creeping up my neck. “When I dream about you… it’s definitely not a nightmare.”
Her mouth opened just a tiny bit in surprise, and her face was suddenly vulnerable. “Really?” she asked.
It was obvious that she was pleased, so I said, “Every single night.”
She closed her eyes for just a minute, but when she opened them, her smile was teasing again.
“REM cycles are the shortest of all the sleep stages. I’m still hours ahead.”
I frowned. It was difficult to process. “You really think about me?”
“Why is that hard for you to believe?”
“Well, look at me,” I said, unnecessarily, as she already was. “I’m absolutely ordinary—well, except for bad things like all the near-death experiences and being so uncoordinated that I can barely walk. And look at you.” I waved my free hand toward her and all her unsettling perfection.
She smiled a slow smile. It started small but ended with the full array of dimples—like the grand finale at the end of a fireworks show on the Fourth of July.
“I can’t argue with you about the bad things.”
“Well, there you go.”
“But you’re the least ordinary person I’ve ever met.”
Our eyes held for a long moment. Mine searched hers, as I tried to believe she could see something important enough to keep her here. It always felt like she was just about to slip away, to disappear like she was only a myth after all.
“But why…” I didn’t know how to phrase it.
She tilted her head, waiting.
“Last night…” I stopped and shook my head.
She frowned. “Do you do that on purpose? The unfinished thought as a way to drive me mad?”
“I don’t know if I can explain it right.”
“Please try.”
I took a deep breath. “Okay. You’re claiming I don’t bore you and you aren’t
thinking of moving on to Jeremy anytime soon.”
She nodded, fighting a grin.
“But last night… it was like…” She was anxious now. The rest came out in a rush. “Like you were already looking for a way to say goodbye.”
“Perceptive,” she whispered. And there was the anguish again, surfacing as she confirmed my worst fear.
Her fingers ever so gently squeezed mine.
“Those two things are unrelated, however.”
“Which two things?”
“The depth of my feelings for you, and the necessity of leaving. Well, they are related, but inversely.”
The necessity of leaving. My stomach plunged. “I don’t understand.”
She stared into my eyes again, and hers burned, mesmerizing. Her voice was barely audible. “The more I care about you, the more crucial it is that I find a way to… keep you safe. From me. Leaving would be the right thing to do.”
I shook my head. “No.”
She took a deep breath, and her eyes seemed to darken in an odd way. “Well, I wasn’t very good at leaving you alone when I tried. I don’t know how to do it.”
“Will you do me a favor? Stop trying to figure that one out.”
She half-smiled. “I suppose, given the frequency of your near-death experiences, it’s actually safer for me to stay close.”
“True story. You never know when another rogue van might attack.”
She frowned.
“You’re still going to Seattle with me, right? Lots of vans in Seattle. Waiting in ambush around literally every corner.”
“Actually, I have a question for you on that subject. Did you really need to go to Seattle this Saturday, or was that just an excuse to get out of saying a definitive no to your bevy of admirers?”
“Um.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“You know, you actually put me in kind of a difficult position with the whole thing in the parking lot with Taylor.”
“You mean because you’re taking her to prom now?”
My mouth fell open, and then I ground my teeth together.
She was trying not to laugh now. “Oh, Beau.”
I could tell there was more. “What?”
“She already has her dress.”
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