by Ron C. Nieto
Keith reached out, tender and insecure, and touched my cheek just as he had done the previous evening at the park. “This feels too genuine to be a fake, Alice. I can’t believe this is a lie, no matter how hard I try not to get my hopes up.”
It was difficult to breathe. The world had slowed down, faded out, disappeared into a static background to him, to him touching me ever so slightly. To us.
I tried to smile.
“You’re the one getting my hopes up now,” I said, trying to lighten the mood and failing miserably. My voice caught in my throat and came out shakier than I wanted.
He flattened his palm against the side of my face and I saw his Adam’s apple moving as he swallowed. His eyes were dark as the ocean depths, but then again, it could be because we were on the far side of dusk and everything looked pretty dark.
Still, I placed my bets and took a step closer, right into his personal space. Without conscious guiding, one of my hands rose to the base of his neck.
His thumb caressed my cheekbone, and I realized that I had never wanted to kiss someone as badly as I did then. It was a physical need, so intense that it hurt.
It would hurt much worse if he pulled away, so I prayed he wouldn’t move aside, wouldn’t turn this into another chaste kiss like he had done yesterday. And I tilted my face up, closing my eyes.
His lips were cool, firm, slightly chapped and trembling against mine. The contact was just barely there, the softest caress, and I felt trapped between the need to stay like that forever and the need to press further into him. After an agonizing second, his hand slid to the back of my head and he sighed, deepening the kiss with the same gentleness it had started.
My head swam and the world crashed back around us, the night breeze and the sounds coming from the homes and the smell of his shampoo mingling with the warmth of his skin.
It was a perfect kiss, bruises and all.
He pulled back reluctantly when we both ran out of air. We stood in silence, trying to recover, both of us too scared to break the moment with words. Then, Keith leaned in again and left a small peck on the corner of my lips.
“There’s school tomorrow and your parents are going to worry. Come on. I’ll walk you home.”
I nodded and started to follow him before his words registered. When they did, I stopped dead. “No. I want to make sure you are okay and that you take care of those blows. I’m coming to your house.”
“It’s nothing too serious. It just needs a bit of ice or something.”
“I’ll put the ice there, then.”
“Trust me, I want to have you at my house right now.” His voice dropped, growing husky. “I want to have you in my room, and I want to have you fussing over me. But it’s Sunday, past eight p.m., and I can’t be selfish.”
“You should,” I said, back to being breathless.
He shook his head.
“Your parents are going to hate me without me giving them any reason. Besides, my dad’s home; he’ll do plenty of fussing. Even if it won’t be the same, you can stop worrying about the bruises.”
Bruises had become the very last thing on my mind, but I tried to recover and nodded. There was truth to what he said, after all. It was going to be difficult for us and we shouldn’t go looking for extra trouble.
The word “us.” I wasn’t surprised at how natural it came to my mind.
“Okay,” I relented. “Can I come over tomorrow to listen to your playing?”
“You can come anytime,” he said with a smile.
We reached a sort of compromise then. He walked me home, but I held onto his hand the whole way. I didn’t want to let go.
CHAPTER 15
By Monday morning, gossip of the previous day had spread like wildfire. The blow to the social structure of the school was of epic proportions. I’d have to be careful or I would end up as collateral damage to the debris while the St. Francis Golden Crowd crumbled to pieces.
Lena and Jack, of course, took Ray’s side. It was hard to understand how anyone could still look at him, but apparently, for them, what he had done was better than my great sin.
Mingling with the weirdo caste is unforgivable, but shoving your girlfriend isn’t. Go figure.
The debacle was pretty much what I had predicted when I decided to invite Keith for coffee so I should have been ready to accept it, but I refused to go down without a fight. It wasn’t just about me anymore, either. It was about Anna.
In any other place, Keith would be congratulated for what he did. Anna would be supported. Ray would be frowned upon. I would not be cowed or embarrassed.
So I set out to remind everyone of that fact. Holding my head high, I strutted through the school building and added an extra sashay to my step. I made sure that my light smile was self-assured and conceited. I behaved as if I owned the place and the joke was on them.
Worrying about this absurd popularity war gave me a measure of control and kept me from overanalyzing what was in my mind.
The way to class was purgatory, in spite of my master plan. Class looked pretty much like Hell, with twenty heads that snapped around to watch me like carrion birds hoping to find a social corpse. Still my tactic worked, at least marginally, and I saw some other students shaking their heads while doubt crept into the faces of a few lead gossipers.
Lena might be the Bitch Queen, but she’d have to work hard if she wanted to defeat me this time.
The only drawback was the amount of whispers that spread around, discussing the new developments. I’d given the rumor mill enough fuel to keep going for weeks.
Tuning the voices out for perhaps the first time in my high school history, I focused wholly on the lecture and took notes. It kept me relaxed, away from the incoming disaster that’d be lunch hour.
When the last bell rang, I headed to my locker and met up with Anna. She played her part, smiling like everything was right in the world, her hair and make-up perfect and her choice of clothes stunning. Her eyes were skittish, though, and I could understand why.
Together, we headed toward the cafeteria and Dave joined us on the way.
“So, where are we eating today?” he asked, casually.
Bless the guy; he had decided to fall in with our side in the schism.
“First free table we can find?” Anna replied, fussing unnecessarily with the hem of her sweater.
I nodded. “Yeah, and if we can find it toward the center of the lobby, then that’s even better.”
“Isn’t center a bit too close to Ray?” Dave was dubious.
“Precisely. He’s the one who should be cowering into a corner, not us.”
Dave shrugged and Anna nodded, steeling herself. The unnatural moment of silence that greeted us was proof enough that whatever normalcy we had was prefabricated, but still the three of us stuck to our plan and headed for a center table with fake smiles plastered on.
Ray looked at us crossly, but he didn’t try to approach. Lena, on the other hand, was beyond livid. We’d have to keep an eye on her, and not just for Keith. Which reminded me…
“I never thanked you properly for yesterday, Dave,” I said suddenly
He tried to brush it off. “It’s cool. That’s what friends are for.”
“Boyfriends are supposed to serve in the same department and look at Ray.”
“I was quite surprised about that. I mean, I know he’s a hot head, but… getting violent with a girl? I’m just glad Keith was around.”
His name was out in the open, and I took a deep breath.
Now or never.
“He’s going to stay around.”
Dave paused for a second, his expression wavering, but he recovered too fast for me to put a name to the emotion.
“Look,” he said, “I know he’s a weirdo. I know he doesn’t have the best rep in school and all that. To be honest, I didn’t like him. But now? He’s pretty decent, if nothing else. I’m okay with giving him a chance, if you two like to hang around with him.”
I let out a
relieved sigh. I had been ready to go on alone if I had to, but the support of my two best friends took a weight off my shoulders.
“Ah, speak of the devil, there he is,” Anna said, waving obnoxiously over. “Hey!”
Sure enough, there he was. He looked surprised and embarrassed to Hell and back for being thrust into the limelight, but he approached our table and sat down anyway.
There was another moment of silence in the hall, another collective gasp followed by snickers from the central table. Then we started to talk about the play and the music score, and after acting as if we didn’t care for a while, we truly got so immersed in our own conversation that we did stop caring.
Afterward, we even walked with Keith to retrieve his guitar and then all four of us headed over to theatre.
“Look there, the new entertainment service,” Lena called out when we entered the class.
“Look here, my brain came up with a joke!” Keith mimicked in a low voice, and I giggled.
“Do try to get in character, Lena. We’re going over your lines, and you’re supposed to luuurve Alice,” Anna reprimanded her.
Lena looked like she had bitten a particularly sour lemon, but didn’t comment.
Rehearsal was going to be very, very long. Then Mr. Hedford arrived and announced that we’d be doing the private meeting between my “mother” and me.
“It never rains…” Dave whispered, with a smile much too amused for his own good.
The announcement got most of the younger students to find their own practice spots, since the tension was kind of obvious, and only Jack, Dave and Anna stayed to look. Keith retired to his corner in the pit, setting up his rack and preparing the volume to be unobtrusive to our own practice.
His playing gave me a little bit of confidence. I’d yet to fail to be transported into Lady Windermere’s Fan when he worked his emotional magic.
And he delivered once more. When Professor Hedford gave us the signal and the music started in his corner, I found that I still very much hated Lena—not because she was a bitch, but because she was a bitch and had tried to steal my husband. In turn, she acted behind a regal façade, letting the public understand the insecurities she was experiencing at being in a home where she was so clearly uninvited.
The scene went on flawlessly, but then I noticed something that didn’t quite work. We were fast approaching the part where some sort of understanding should appear between us, and I only found anxiousness and unhappy thoughts in my head. It was as if Lord Windermere had already left me, not only in shame, but with a broken heart and no honor. Lena, on her part, seemed to grow nervous by the minute, as if she were expecting me to punch her or something.
It didn’t screw up the acting and Mr. Hedford didn’t call a halt, but it was jarring when compared with the previous smoothness.
Strange. Perhaps it’s because I dislike Lena so much?
No. It was the music. The music was weird and the realization made me stutter in the delivery of my line.
Keith had always shown a precise understanding of emotion and moods, and he had always played as it fit the scene being rehearsed. That was the reason we got it so well, so fast—he used his guitar from his darkened corner to show us exactly how we would be feeling if we were our characters.
This time, though, he was playing a discordant melody, something fast and delirious that made us tense and didn’t allow us to shake off a foreboding feeling thick enough to cut with a knife.
I frowned, recognition slowly inching its way into my mind. It was the piece he had played for me that first time in his room, the one he had been composing on the fly. He had said that he’d gotten the idea for the melody when doing the sound checks here in the auditorium, and it sounded like he’d polished it considerably since then—it was much faster, much darker, much more desperate. But it was the same song.
But why was he playing it and not the Windermere themes he had actually prepared?
“Halt!” Mr. Hedford called, and I realized with embarrassment that I had missed my cue. “I think that’s quite okay for today,” he said, instead of reproaching me. “We’ve nailed nearly another full scene, which allows us to wrap the first two Acts. That’s enough of a milestone, so let’s celebrate it by finishing early today.” He smiled, and I imagined he had noticed the tension in the air and chosen to let it run its course outside the class.
I was grateful for his choice, and so were the rest of my classmates. They all left quickly, without lingering to joke or discuss the events of the day. I shared a look with Anna, who was sitting first row with Dave, and she nodded in understanding, picking up her things and heading out with the rest of the throng. I knew they’d wait for me in the lobby or in the parking lot, but I needed to stay behind and ask Keith what had happened.
When I approached the pit, I frowned. In spite of Professor Hedford’s comment, he was still playing the same tune, his fingers dancing over the strings like lightning. He didn’t look like the last time I had seen him in his room, though. This time, he stared ahead, away from the stage, not even paying attention to the notes he was picking, and his expression was blank.
“Keith?”
When he didn’t reply, I moved in front of him and waved a hand in front of his eyes. The situation reminded me eerily of Saturday afternoon, when I had gone to his house with the chocolate cake and he’d been absorbed in his music. This time, retreat didn’t cross my mind, even though he didn’t react to my presence, and I had a sudden urge to just turn my back and leave him to his practice.
“Keith, I’m trying to talk to you,” I said, tapping his shoulder. I gasped. Under his shirt, his shoulder muscles were so taut they trembled.
“What the hell?” I blurted.
Finally, the notes fell out of place and he gasped, jumping in surprise. Slinging off the guitar, he left it propped against the pit’s wall and took a couple of steps back, massaging his temples.
“Sorry,” he said, sounding drained. “I don’t know what happened there.”
“I don’t know either, but it was creepy.” I tried to smile. “You got really carried away, huh?”
Instead of smiling back, he frowned. “It’s that song. It’s like I’m close to getting it right, like there’s just one more try to go before perfection. I can’t give it up.” Shaking his head, he ran a hand through his hair. “And you thought your stalking was psycho? I’m feeling crazy right now.”
“It’s okay; it’s just a song. You’ll get it right and move past it,” I said, trying to encourage him. “I just wanted to talk to you because it felt like an ill fit to today’s scene. I didn’t know why you’d chosen to play it, but… I guess it’s obvious now.”
“That’s all you wanted?” he said, smirking the worry away and adopting a rather impish look instead. “You sure know how to crush a guy.”
I blushed. We hadn’t talked about what we were now, whether we were anything at all. The previous day I had been grateful—words would have been cumbersome; we were right together and that was all that mattered. But now, in the light of day and in school grounds, I realized I had no idea what to expect.
“I like the playful you almost as much as the playing you,” I said.
“I’m just cool all around, aren’t I?” He leaned in, kissing my temple very lightly.
“Are you really going to practice longer?”
“You have an alternative?”
I grinned. “Well, yeah, I do.”
CHAPTER 16
I wanted my alternative to include the park and the pond again, but lugged as we were with school stuff and practice stuff, we ended up going to his place after saying good-bye to Anna and Dave.
I didn’t complain.
When we arrived, his father was off at work and he headed straight for his room, replacing the guitar in its stand, checking the rack before setting it down, and finally taking off his jacket to hang inside the closet. I watched him move around, leaving my own bag propped against his table and the jacket hangi
ng behind his door.
“You are so organized,” I commented when he finally turned to me. “And you don’t even look like it.”
He snorted. “Because I dye my hair?”
“Nope, it’s because of the nails.”
“I don’t like to leave stuff in the way, that’s all,” he said with a smile, acknowledging my attempt at a joke.
“Mind if I don’t play today?” he asked suddenly.
I blinked. “I thought you weren’t going to.”
He looked surprised for a split second, but his recovery time was spectacular. He had that beautiful smirk that made him look like a boy who was up to no good.
“Mmmhmm.”
The perfectly innocent issue became anything but such. Hyperaware that we were alone, at a scant three feet from his bed and that I had just made clear that today music was out of the picture, my mind started coming up with other reasons for me to be where I was.
Every single one of them made me blush.
“I mean, you’ve been playing at practice. Besides, you were getting frustrated with that one song, so I thought…” I was not only stammering, but also babbling. I needed to shut up before I made a total idiot out of myself. He looked more amused by my words, but I just couldn’t bite them off.
“Breathe,” he said. My tirade stopped because of his soft, affectionate tone and he smiled. “That’s a good girl.”
Then, he took two steps right into my personal space, slowly, as if he didn’t want to spook me. Before I realized it, his fingertips were against my lips. It was his right hand, soft and tender, and it felt like the most intimate thing I’d ever done with a guy, way beyond kissing and making out.
He slid his fingers over my lips, feather light. His eyes fell half closed and I heard him take a deep breath
“You’re precious,” he whispered, his hand dragging toward my chin to tilt my head to the side.
“But you hardly know me.”
“I know who I am when I’m with you like this.”
“You didn’t trust me much just a couple days ago.” I knew I was just being contrary. My sudden nerves were to blame.
