Sophie looked up at me, her clear, blue-green eyes full of laughter, turning to Jade she said, “Catch ya later.” She jumped up and away, hurrying to another table.
I sat down awkwardly next to Jade. She turned to me, small hands neatly on the table. Then she did the unexpected, reaching one of those small hands to cover mine. Instinctively, I closed my hand around hers, grinning like an idiot. Every struggle had been worth it to be in this moment with her.
“So,” she said, still hanging on to my hand, “what did you want to talk about?”
I looked down at our clasped hands and my mouth got dry. Okay, Hart, you got this. She obviously likes you, so start with that.
“Well, I know we don't know each other very well but, do you want to go out?” I stumbled over that last part, simultaneously hoping my hands didn't choose then to sweat.
She smiled, a little shyly and answered, “I thought you'd never ask.”
No one in the history of the universe could have possibly been happier.
“Let's go somewhere and talk,” I said.
“Okay,” she stood up and stuffed her pulse in her pocket. We made our way into the open hallway. I didn't want to let go of her hand, ever.
She leaned against the wall and I took her other hand and looked down at her. There were some girls that were actually shorter than me.
“I'm so glad you finally asked me,” she said.
It's not like she hit me over the head with clues or anything.
Jade grinned at my expression. “You're the guy, you have to ask.”
“That's not true, you could have given me a hint,” I said, miffed, but not really.
She smiled and lifted my hand up with hers, tilting her head and laying the top of my hand against her cheek. My heart paused in my chest. Her skin felt like silk under my hand. Letting go of her hand I cupped the side of her face, noticing how small it really was. I leaned down and whispered in her ear, “Meet me after band today.”
She turned her head into mine, smelling like a ripe peach and whispered, “Okay.”
My stomach rumbled and I laughed. “I guess we better eat,”
I looked at her lunch tray, girls sure ate weird.
She saw my expression. “What?” All innocent like.
I shrugged. “No wonder you're so small, you don't eat anything real.”
She looked down at her tray and pointed a finger at the biggest offender, the salad. “This is real.”
I made a grunting noise and she pursed her lips. She gave my tray the look she thought it deserved. Pizza was definitely the food of the gods, I thought with satisfaction.
The Js were at our regular lunch table and just finishing their pizza. Smart food choice.
Jade followed me over to our table and we plunked down.
Jonesy looked up and with a lingering glance at Jade's tray. “Are you kidding with that?” he pointed his fork at her tray with Jonesy-disdain leaking from every pore.
Jade put her hands on her hips and said, “You boys need to clean up your eating habits.”
John looked down at his three crusts, fourth piece in hand and shrugged his skinny shoulders, taking a bite that polished off half the slice. Jonesy laughed and used his crust to wipe up the last vestiges of his ranch dressing.
Jade stared with fascination at Jonesy's ritual. His pears and green beans lay lonely and untouched in a forgotten corner of his tray. This was an introduction to Eating Habits of Boys. Jonesy mowed through his dessert cup of sherbet while expertly eying whatever food John had been dumb enough not to finish.
I didn't have my normal appetite. After all, it wasn't every day that you got yourself a girlfriend.
Jonesy was licking the spoon that was shaped like a small paddle when he blurted out, “So you two going out now?”
John sorta choked on that last hunk of pizza, some of it escaping his mouth.
Jade stopped the fork midway to her mouth, fruit balanced on the tines.
I answered, “Yeah Jonesy, we are.” My tone said it all. Could you just... not.
Jonesy smiled evilly. I knew he was sticking it to me because I had ditched them at lunch. Fine, payback's a bitch and Gramps would add: and then you die.
“Sorry about your lunch,” I mumbled.
“It's okay.” she curled her small hand around my forearm, where a tiny pulse beat, captured in the delicate skin of her wrist. She fascinated me.
I recovered, “Tomorrow we'll actually eat and talk.” The Js stood and we followed. Carson and Brett sauntered over, Brett eying Jade.
I didn't like it.
“Hi Jade,” Brett said, nodding to the Js and me. Carson didn't bother.
“Hi,” she said, sensing major awkwardness.
“Hey Hart, gonna see ya at the cemetery on Sunday,” Carson said, looking hard at Jonesy but talking to me.
Jonesy stepped forward and Jade stepped a little behind me, Jonesy and I were side by side.
Jonesy said, “We'll all be there, I told ya.”
Brett looked at Jade. “Even your little girlfriend is coming?” And before anyone knew what was happening he reached out, his hand passing through the end of her hair.
“Don't touch me!” she yelped, startled. Some other kids turned to stare and she backed away.
“Leave her alone, dickhead,” I said, facing Brett, my hands balled into tight fists. I was ready for a hammer session.
Brett moved up until our noses almost touched, our chests a millimeter from contact. Singing tension filled the moment.
“Caleb, we have eyes,” John said in a low voice.
I didn't take mine off Brett.
Carson stopped things from getting out-of-control. “Leave it, he can't do anything and the girl's not worth it,” he sneered.
We stood back and the tension dissipated. Carson pulled Brett along with him, who kept walking backwards, looking at me the whole time. A moment before he vacated the double doors his gaze shifted to the left and became thoughtful. I followed his gaze to see what he was looking at and Jade filled my vision. Her anxious face was pinched and nervous. Rage filled me that someone would threaten her. I put my arm around her and scooped her up against me while my other hand stroked her hair. She shivered under my touch while I looked over at the Js, their grim expressions matching mine.
Jonesy broke the silence first, “Sunday can't come soon enough.”
He and John walked off, Jade and I in tow, my arm still around her shoulders, where it felt like it had always belonged.
CHAPTER 10
John was listening raptly to Xavier Collins, aka, Biology teacher extraordinaire. He ran around the room, boiling with energy, making his point. Unfortunately, I had worn out my welcome when we had dissected the frogs and I kept passing out and getting hauled off to the nurse's office.
Collins was jogging back and forth in front of the board, smacking his fist into his open palm, doing a rant about the bees. That again, I thought a little glumly. Between Dad, big time scientist in his pants and Mom, environmental activist. I knew what was wrong. I put my head in both my palms. John nodded with marked enthusiasm at what Collins was saying.
“This alarming trend of the decimation of honeybees is appalling. The origins of which precedes 2010. It was in that year that nearly one million honeybee colonies were wiped out,” Collins said.
Having a swarm of anything die would be a fresh hell for me.
“Caleb Hart,” Collins paused, “what say you on this subject?”
Oh great. Like this day couldn't get any more stressed. “Ah... what do you want me to say?”
“What are your thoughts on the continual decline of this critical species which impacts our habitat at every turn?”
“Well, my mom had me help her plant flowers in the garden that attract bees,” I said.
Carson covered a laugh by coughing. He was such a jerk. I blushed. It was lame that I admitted helping Mom. But, my choices were cleaning the bathroom or gardening. Gee, let me think about it.
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Collins turned sharply to Carson. “Do you have something to add, Mr. Hamilton?” his gaze steady on Carson's face.
Carson squirmed under the scrutiny.
“No,” Carson finally said.
“Good, very good,” he said and turned his attention back to me.
“Well, go on then, Caleb.”
“That's it. I mean, I hear my parents talk about the environment a lot.” My voice conveyed how obvious that would be in my household.
Collins was trapping me. I wasn't his favorite so why question me? I looked over at John, he was as confused as I.
“What plants did she select?” Collins asked.
Wow, easy question. “We plant flowers in blue and violet, mainly. But my mom has rhododendrons in a bunch of different colors. She says it's important to plant different types and try to use native plants.”
A speech for me. I actually knew something about this because of my role as The Gardening Slave.
“Very good, Caleb. Caleb's family is doing exactly what we all need to be doing. This 'pocket gardening' technique emphasizes that if all of us were doing our small part to propagate the environment, that cumulative effort would have tremendous impact. These insects need all of us to resurrect their dying numbers.”
Suddenly, Collins spun around and pointed a finger at me. “What's your favorite plant for bee attraction, Caleb?”
“Sunflower,” I flung back.
Collins smiled and jogged back to the whiteboard. John gave me the thumbs up and Carson gave me the finger. I turned back to the teacher with a smile on my face. Some days were okay.
During English and PE I was distracted by Jade. Jade using her pulse-pad, Jade doing jumping jacks to the tune of Ms. Griswold's sandpaper voice.
I couldn't believe the school gave us credit for playing music and in between sets we discussed Jade. It was easier without Jonesy around, who was sorta anti-girlfriends right now.
“Are you gonna tell her?” John asked during Band.
“Don't really have a choice. Carson and Brett said something in front of her.”
“Yeah, what was with Brett doing that to Jade?” he asked.
“I don't know but it pissed me off.”
“Maybe he likes her. You know, likes her,” John said.
Brett was always a little mean to her. I guess a guy as lame as Brett can't think of a better way to act so they just fall back on what they know... lameness.
“He lives kinda by her, ya know.”
Yeah, I knew that.
But now that she lived with her aunt was he still close? I asked John. He thought she still lived pretty close to her old house.
“Is her aunt like her dad?” my voice trailed off. John looked thoughtful.
“You know her dad's a big-time drunk, right?” I nodded, everyone knew. “Well, I don't hear the same stuff about her. It was some kind of protective custody thing,” he said
I knew some of the history. She was getting beaten (my heart sped with adrenaline). I heard the aunt had called Child Protective Services and they still kept tabs on her. Her creeper dad would be a problem.
“Yeah, she's never said anything about her dad to me,” I said.
John gave me a look. “Before today, did you talk to her much?”
He had me there. “No, I was kinda freaked.”
“She's just a girl, Caleb.” his blue eyes were serious, sunlight glinting through the window made his hair into a flaming halo.
Just a girl.
“Coming from you that means a lot, Terran! With your harem-o-chicks!” John blushed a fine, blazing red that only true redheads can. I was just the first guy in the group to have a girlfriend and it was new, to all of us. It's not like we were big “players.”
“I plan to get to 'know her' a little better after band...” the sentence trailing off suggestively.
“Huh? You're gonna take her home to meet the Parents?” he smirked.
“We're not that serious!” I exclaimed.
“Not yet.” John looked down and strummed a chord, making my teeth vibrate this close to the amp. It being Thursday, we had lost our beginning of the week warm up problems. Tomorrow would see us playing really well.
As we headed for the door, John and I hung our guitars on their respective wood pegs. The sun blazed light through the huge windows, dust motes swirling lazily in the air, suspended in an invisible web.
Stepping outside my eyes locked on Jade.
I took in the sight of her like a cool drink: shining black hair, tight pink cami, covered by a soft, chocolate-colored T-shirt, jeans so blue they were almost black and little strappy sandals. I loved a girl that dressed like one. She smiled when she saw me and it was all I could do to not pick her up and spin her around. Must keep feelings in check!
John cleared his throat, we turned and I waved at him in a, you caught me way. We started walking toward my house. John gave me the thumb sign for me to use my pulse later, I nodded and kept walking. Finally, a chance to talk,.. but not my house, not yet. I wasn't ready for the whole meet-the-parents thing. I was a little shaky on having told them about Jade anyway, with all the other stuff that was closing in on my life like a noose.
****
Dappled sunlight struggled through the canopy of trees in the small park that stood at the opening of my neighborhood. Little more than a drainage area when the development was first built in the 1970s, it has become over time, a small oasis with structures all around, except for the back, where the city park borders it, separated by an ugly, cyclone fence. Huge indigenous evergreens tower in the park, broken here and there by a lone Alder tree. These too, cast pools of shade in the late afternoon light. Jade and I sat on a well worn bench which stood just inside the entrance to the woods, little more than a dirt path where a patch of sun slanted across her forehead.
Our hands were still entwined when she asked, “What's going on Sunday, Caleb?”
“Maybe you should pulse your aunt and let her know when you'll be home?”
Jade pulled out her (slathered in iridescent lavender hearts) pulse. “Good idea,” she said, sliding it back in her pocket and leaning back against me.
“What did ya say?” I asked.
“I told her I was hanging out with a friend.”
It occurred to me that maybe not all kids would just blurt out their romantic processes to their parents. I couldn't imagine Jonesy doing it and not at all John. Huh.
“Did you tell her about us?” I asked.
“Well, I didn't tell her a name. I just said I liked a boy at school.”
“What's your aunt's name?”
“Oh...Andrea,” she responded absently, as if her mind was already a million miles away.
I whipped my pulse out of my pocket (it was all-black because it's cool like that), and pulsed Mom:
Mom, it's me-CH
Hey honey, whatcha doin'? AH
I'm here in the woods with Jade-CH
You are, are ya? laughs-AH
We're talking; when's supper? CH
Usual time-AH
Okay, I'll be on time-CH
Jade is welcome anytime, Caleb-AH
Gotcha, see ya-CH
Love you-AH
I passed my thumb over the pad and the luminescent characters faded to black. I looked up.
“Your mom.” A statement.
I nodded. “She says you're welcome to come over anytime.”
Jade looked down, her long hair falling like ink spilling.
She twisted in my embrace to look at me. “You told your parents about me?”
I put my hand up, palm open. “Yeah, I mean, it's not different than you telling your aunt Andrea, that you like a boy. But,” I looked directly at her this time, “I gave them your name.”
Jade squirmed, wringing her hands.
“What?”
“Do they know about...” she trailed off a little, then resumed, “my dad and our family and all?”
“Yeah, I didn't tell them but the
y already knew.”
We sat in silence for a few moments, not awkward but like people that fit together like puzzle pieces.
“I love my aunt,” she said suddenly.
What could I do to make this better?
I knew. “My parents don't care and neither do I.”
“Really?” she asked shyly, her hands unclasping.
“Really.”
A huge grin appeared like sunlight breaking through storm clouds. I grinned back. The moment held, grew and became a perfect memory.
She did a little shiver as I gave her a side hug. I was diggin' on that response.
“Sunday,” she said.
Oh yeah, that. Mood-killer.
“Okay so, the APs are coming up on Monday?” She looked at me like, yeah... duh.
“Well, I found out that I have AFTD.”
I expected shock, surprise or something. But Jade just looked back at me calmly.
“I already knew.”
What the hell? “How?”
What she said next took my breath away: “Because I'm an Empath.”
It was like the biggest puzzle piece falling into place! I understood her behavior! She already knew about my “problem” because she had one of her own!
I became instantly self-conscious. She knew stuff about me that maybe I hadn't wanted her to know, like how much I liked her. Couldn't a guy have a few secrets?
She sensed my tension. “This is why I haven't said anything.”
I tried to relax.
“You haven't told anyone but me?” I asked.
“And Sophie. I was thinking about telling Andrea but she may tell my dad.”
I was surprised. “Why would she do that?”
“I don't know. She knows he's crappy, has been crappy, but she thinks he has a right to know important stuff. She'd think this was.”
“Well, she's gonna find out after Monday.”
She nodded, she knew.
“My dad's got a cerebral inhibitor that I'm gonna take so I won't hit the radar as a corpse raiser.”
“Caleb, they're gonna know that you're AFTD.”
“I know, but I can be a lesser AFTD and I won't be that important. Ya know, a two-point or something.”
The Death Series, Books 1-3 Page 8
