by Abigail Owen
Ellie fought with herself for a moment. She wasn’t quite sure what to think about the fact that her friends didn’t appear to know about her morning runs with their brother. Not wanting to turn around and see him and unable to resist it at the same time, she lost the battle and glanced over her shoulder, her gaze immediately colliding with Alex’s.
She had no idea why, but a blush crept slowly up her face. Annoyed with her lack of self-control on so many levels, she moved to get into her own car, only to be stopped by Jill. They’d become friends over the last few months. Jill was a sweet girl, but a little boy-crazy.
“Did you see Alex Jenner?” Jill gave a dramatic sigh. “He is just so gorgeous!”
Ellie grinned her mutual appreciation. “Do you know him?”
“No.” Jill’s expression was hilariously tragic. “He graduated a few years ago. Before I was in high school. I think he’s a sophomore in college now.”
“Oh…” Ellie was at a loss for words. “Well, I’d better get home. See ya, Jill!” And with a wave, she hopped in her car and drove away.
The following day as she was pulling into the school parking lot, Ellie saw Adelaide’s car pull in behind her. Once again, Alex was driving his siblings to school. He parked in the spot next to hers and came over to her door.
“Hi, Ellie.”
“Hi, Alex,” she replied, mimicking his casual attitude. Ellie looked around, unable to think of anything else to say since she’d just seen him earlier that morning, and became aware of the three pairs of curious eyes watching them.
“Hi, guys!” She gave Lila and Adelaide quick hugs, as always making sure she was careful not to touch their skin.
“Bye, Alex,” Lila called over her shoulder. They turned in tandem to walk into the school.
“Bye,” he called back. “See you later, Ellie…”
Ellie turned to smile back at him, and found him watching her with an oddly intent look. And the blush, the one that she was beginning to truly hate, flamed up her face again and she turned away as quickly as she could. She thought she heard his soft chuckle as she continued to hurry away. She just barely suppressed a hum of frustration.
Chapter 12
I must’ve looked like a blithering idiot, Ellie thought. She couldn’t believe how she could be so awkward with Alex now, but so comfortable with him when they met in the mornings. Lila linked an arm through Ellie’s, pulling her away from her inward contemplation.
“If it’s okay,” Lila started, “Can we get a ride with you to the library after school?”
“Of course.”
“Thanks! Alex is using the car again today. He’ll pick us up when we’re done with dinner.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Ellie said.
The day dragged on. Ellie found that even her favorite classes, English and French, were particularly boring today. She spent a lot of time absentmindedly doodling Alex’s name with little hearts in her notebook and watching as the hands of the clock seemed to cease all movement.
Ugh…This day is just never ending!
Sometimes, just to amuse herself, Ellie would tap into Griffin’s mind reading power and idly listen in on the high school gossip. Usually she didn’t like to invade people’s privacy, especially his. And if she did stumble on anything personal or anything mean, she always immediately moved away from those thoughts. Today there was apparently very little going on.
A bit of a competition was brewing between two of the girls Ellie sat with at lunch, Kayla and Rose, over Brian, the boy from Ellie’s economics class.
“Kayla just needs to back off. She’s soooo obvious, coming on to Brian that way,” Ellie caught Rose’s thoughts during lunch.
“Jeez. Rose should get a clue that Brian is not remotely into her,” Kayla was thinking during economics.
Brian tended to be the focus of a lot of the girls at the school, and Ellie could understand why. He was hot, outgoing, genuinely nice, smart, and athletic. A good catch for anyone. Brian didn’t tend to show favoritism for any one girl, which led all the girls interested in him to think they had a chance. It was silly, but this small bit of drama managed to keep Ellie’s mind occupied to get her through the day.
As soon as her last class was over, Ellie met Lila, Adelaide, and Nate in the parking lot and drove them all to the library. Ellie hadn’t been there yet. The building was one of the first you came to when going down the main street of downtown Estes Park. All wooden beams and stone, it looked more like a lodge than a library. It wasn’t very busy on a Thursday night in March.
They trooped into the building and headed upstairs where the tables and study carols were located.
“Awesome!” Nate exclaimed. “The biggest table is still open.”
They pulled out chairs and spent the first several minutes getting settled and spread out…organizing their books and notes and booting up their laptops.
Ellie had never studied with other people before, always working on her homework in the middle of the night, and never allowing herself to make friends at any of her previous schools. In general, her impression was that most students used studying in a group as an excuse to socialize, never really getting any work done.
As Ellie looked at her new friends, she thought, I should just tell them who I am.
“Don’t you dare, Ellie,” Griffin’s voice echoed in her mind. “You agreed we would wait until I could find out a little more about them.”
Keeping her expression carefully blank, she mentally replied, “This is getting silly, Griffin. I know these are good people.”
“Just a little longer Elle. I can’t shake this feeling that something is wrong. At least give me till the end of the week. That’s only a few more days. Okay?”
“Okay,” she agreed reluctantly.
Breaking the mental contact with her brother, Ellie turned to concentrating on school work. Fairly quickly, the three girls knocked out studying for their test scheduled for the end of the week. Since they were all fluent, it wasn’t that hard. French was Ellie’s “easy A” class. Apparently it was the same for Adelaide and Lila.
“How’d you get so good?” Lila asked as she put away her textbook, and pulled out homework for another class. They’d decided they were all ready for the exam.
Ellie answered with her usual practice of sticking as closely to the truth as she could and being as vague as possible about the rest. “My mother’s side of the family’s from France.” She made sure to gloss over the verb tense as she said it. “I’ve spoken it since I was a child.”
Ellie caught a slightly perplexed look on Lila’s face. But she covered it up so rapidly, Ellie wondered if she’d really seen it.
“Did your parents meet in France?” Adelaide asked propping her chin on her hand.
“No… ummm… they met in the U.S. Most of my family was here by then.” Ellie shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She hated getting creative with the truth. She was brilliant at it, but hated it, regardless.
“Hi, guys,” a deep voice conveniently interrupted the conversation. His voice. Her heart raced and her breath tightened in her chest.
Alex was standing directly behind her. Ellie took a quick second to compose herself before she turned around to stare directly into his silver-blue eyes.
“Hey,” he said softly, talking to her alone, giving her long hair a gentle tug.
“Hi, Alex.” Ellie was proud of how she managed to pull off a casually confident sounding reply. “What’re you doing here?”
“Working on some research for Dad.” He grabbed a chair from the table and straddled it beside her.
“Don’t look now,” Lila leaned over to Ellie to whisper. “But Brian Reynolds is staring at you.”
Ellie kept her expression carefully neutral. She’d heard a lot about Brian today listening in on thoughts of various girls at school. But she hadn’t bothered to listen to Brian’s thoughts, and so hadn’t been aware that he was even at the library.
“I’m sure he’s not looking at me
,” she whispered back. She glanced over at Alex, surprised to see a rather peculiar frown on his face.
“He’s really staring at you, Ellie,” Adelaide chimed in with a conspiratorial grin.
Ellie turned around, and immediately saw Brian across the library. He gave her that head dip guys tend to use when she caught his eye and waved her over.
“Umm… maybe he wants help with his homework,” she muttered. “I’d better go see.”
“Hey, Ellie.” Brian gave her a confident grin as she approached him.
“Hi.”
“I didn’t get a chance to talk to you today,” he said. “You seemed kinda distracted during economics.”
“Ummm… I was just bored. Letting my mind wander.” Ellie gave a nonchalant shrug.
“Oh. Anyway… how’d you like to go to a movie Friday night?”
“Oh!” She’d joined in on several activities organized by the crew Brian hung out with in the past few months. She always had fun, which had been a pleasant surprise after so many years of keeping to herself. “Sure! Are Lila, Adelaide, and Nate going?”
Brian looked puzzled, and Ellie was confused…She’d obviously missed something. With an inward sigh of resignation, she tapped into Griffin’s power again.
“… Guess she didn’t figure out that I was asking her on a date,” Brian was thinking.
Ellie bit back her amusement. I should’ve known, she thought. But high school boys often didn’t like to be direct when they were interested. They sort of fished around, or hinted, or assumed that you knew they were asking you on a date. Her first few times in high school she’d even confused an offer as a date when it wasn’t. It was never very clear either way. She didn’t know how normal girls managed it without mind reading abilities to help them out. Boys got better at asking girls on a date properly in college she’d found.
Pretending she hadn’t heard Brian’s thoughts, she continued, “Do you mind if I ask them along too?” She gave him an innocent, oblivious look.
Truthfully, she was flattered. Brian was a great guy. But there was a very good reason that she couldn’t date him. Although she was a student at the moment, she had been in high school several times. But being over two-hundred years old made dating a real teenager… creepy. There was something just not right about it. Knowing the track Brian was on, Ellie already had a plausible excuse prepared for when he did get around to asking her out properly.
Chapter 13
Alex tried to appear like he wasn’t watching Ellie. He tried not to notice that the boy she was talking to looked like the athletic, popular type that all the girls go for. He tried really hard not to think about how Ellie would probably be flattered by the attention. And most important of all, he tried not to think about the vaguely irritated feeling that came over him when Lila told Ellie she was being admired from afar. That feeling hadn’t gone away, and if anything, was growing stronger as he watched Ellie let out a small giggle and the other boy lean closer. Alex gritted his teeth. What could he do? He’d tried his best to keep his relationship with Ellie as casual as possible. Had even stopped texting her and tried to treat her like a little sister when they were on their runs. But that didn’t diminish his growing feelings toward her. Feelings he could never act on, no matter how strong they were becoming.
Alex shook his head and turned his attention back to his siblings, and caught Adelaide’s amused expression. He sighed.
“Ok, Delia, what do you see?”
Her eyebrows shot up. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Alex,” she replied, pursing her lips.
Shrugging, Alex let it go. She’d tell him when she wanted to, if she wanted to.
*****
While Ellie and Brian were talking about the movie on Friday, an idea popped into her head. She didn’t date boys in high school, but she supposed being friends with them was alright. She tapped into Griffin’s power and checked through Brian’s thoughts a little more in depth. As far as she could tell, he wasn’t actually attached to the idea of dating her. She just happened to be the new girl in his group. Someone he had yet to date. And someone who hadn’t shown much interest which, of course, made him all the more interested. So if she encouraged friendship, and remained clear about that distinction, she wouldn’t hurt him. And she needed a distraction from Alex. He seemed to be occupying way too much of her brain space these days. Too much for her comfort.
“If you’re here alone, why don’t you join us?” she said to Brian. She waved her hand in the general direction of the group.
Brian looked pleased and glanced at his watch. “I have to leave in about thirty minutes,” he said. “But I could hang out ‘til then.” He stood up, collected his gear, and followed her across the room.
When they approached the table, Ellie explained to her friends, “I invited Brian to join us while he’s here.”
“Hey, Reynolds!” Nate greeted Brian with a high-five. Nate played tight-end on the school football team, while Brian was the quarterback and team captain. The two boys were understandably friendly even though it was off-season.
“Brian, this is our brother, Alex,” Lila said. The two boys shook hands with a nod. Brian pulled out a chair and got settled.
“I’d better get to work,” Alex announced. With a casual salute, he left the rest of them to their studies.
After a little while, when Brian and Nate seemed to run out of conversation about basketball, Ellie nonchalantly asked, “So what movie are we going to see Friday, Brian?” Looking at the others at the table she kept her expression carefully innocent as she added, “Are you guys going, too?”
Lila glanced at Brian. “Is a group going to see a movie?”
Listening to Brian’s thoughts, Ellie almost laughed out loud as he mentally gave up on having a date with her. He just barely stopped himself from answering with a sigh. “Yeah,” he said. Ellie had to give him some credit, he bounced back quickly. “I’m getting a group together to go on Friday. You guys in?”
“What’s the movie?” Nate asked. “I’m not going to see some lame chick flick.” He scrunched up his face comically, eliciting a laugh from the others. Adelaide bopped him in the arm.
Brian named a movie that was definitely a guy’s guy type movie. All action, lots of blood probably, short on plot, but very entertaining.
Nate punched a fist in the air. “Yeah, man!” he exclaimed. “I’m in.”
Adelaide and Lila rolled their eyes in unison. “Not really my type of movie,” Lila said with a wry twist to her lips. “But I’m in, too.”
Adelaide shrugged her shoulders in resignation. “I go where Nate goes,” she agreed, snuggling in to him.
“What about you, Ellie?” Adelaide asked.
Since Ellie happened to enjoy that genre of movie, she grinned. “I’ve already told Brian that I’d go,” she confirmed. “I hope that it’s going to be as good as the first two.”
Both boys gave her a dumbfounded look. “No way,” Nate teased. “A girl who likes action movies? I don’t believe it.”
“Hey! Lots of girls like action movies,” Ellie defended.
“Not the girls in my life,” Nate declared, winking at Adelaide.
Ellie tapped her pen on her notebook. “I like almost all types of movies, but action and fantasy happen to be my favorites. Best movie ever, hands down… Star Wars.”
“Wait,” Brian narrowed his eyes at her. “Which one?”
“Duh…” Ellie rolled her eyes dramatically. “Episode four.”
“I beg to differ,” Nate scoffed. “Empire is clearly the best of the Star Wars movies.”
Ellie shook her head. “The Empire Strikes Back is too dark for me.”
“Sorry to interrupt your geek-out moment,” Lila started. “But after listening to basketball talk for twenty minutes, I’m afraid that sci-fi talk would send me over the edge.”
Ellie just laughed and bent her head back to her studies. About the time Brian left, Ellie moved on to her English assignment, writing
her term research paper. This happened to be one of Ellie’s favorite assignments at this school so far. She was researching Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, one of her favorite novels, rich in both characters and in satire. The internet provided the opportunity to do the majority of her research from the comfort of her home, but Mrs. Cavender had insisted that her students include citations from real books. What better place to do that research than in the library? With that in mind, Ellie hopped up and went to the computer terminal and started to look up material that might help her with the assignment.
She was standing amidst the aisles leafing through one of the titles when a voice murmured in her ear, “That must be fascinating reading.”
She was so startled that she dropped her book and jumped back. She managed to remain cognizant of the library rules, and restrained herself to a little squeak of surprise, rather than a loud yelp. Alex was leaning against the shelf, arms crossed over his broad chest, one foot casually crossed over the other, and watching her with a highly amused expression.
“Jeez, Alex. You scared me,” she accused in a half-whisper.
“Sorry.” He gave her an unapologetic grin. “You know you’ve been standing there reading that book for a good fifteen minutes? I’m amazed at your powers of concentration.”
Ellie hid her chagrin that, unbeknownst to her, Alex had been watching her that long. She felt flattered and unnerved all at the same time. She bent to retrieve her dropped book, but Alex beat her to it. “Jane Austen fan?” he asked as he glanced at the title.
“What girl isn’t?” she quipped. She made sure their fingers didn’t touch as she accepted it.
Alex stood back and re-crossed his arms over his muscled chest. The look he gave her indicated he was waiting for a real answer. Ellie knew that expression from their morning runs. She was being too vague for him again.
She gave an exaggerated huff, pretending to be annoyed. “This is for an English paper. But, yes, I do like Jane Austen. As a rule I prefer British classical authors over American. Although there are a few exceptions.”
