by M.E. Timmons
***
The holiday season came faster than I was expecting it to. By that time I felt as if I had been at Winterwood for such a short amount of time, even though so many things had changed in my life since I had arrived. I had become really good friends with my roommates, especially Heather, who was a genuinely good person. I spent a lot of time with Melissa as well, who was always a bundle of energy, though I hadn't started working on my fire resistance with her yet. She did know about my ability though. She learned about it before I told her, when she accidently sent a shoot of fire into my face. It caused quite a panic until people realized I was fine. Mr. Ramirez almost always partnered us together after that, deciding it was the safest thing to do.
I saw Jack pretty much every day, which I was happy about. Even though we spent a lot less time together than back in Washington, we managed to stay as close as we always were. I really didn't know what I would do without him.
There was a break in classes during the holidays, and a lot of the students went home to see their families. By the time they were all gone I was the only one left in my room, since all of my roommates had families to go home to. I thought I would enjoy having a room to myself for once, but I missed them. Jack was still there, of course, since he had no more home to go to than I did. As far as I knew he was the only one left at school who I knew, but I was happy to get to spend some quality time with him.
"Do you like it here?" he asked me one day as we sat in the south wing common room, drinking hot chocolate and watching the light snow that was coming down outside. We were the only ones there, so the room felt oddly empty.
"Of course," I answered. "Why wouldn't I? At least we actually have friends here, and we don't have to live with a bunch of crazy little kids who'll break anything they get their hands on."
"True. I like the independence we have here too. We always had to ask Ms. Holland whenever we wanted to do anything back at Pembrook."
"Plus there's so much more to do here, and the library's infinitely better."
Jack laughed. "You and your libraries. You could live in one and be perfectly content."
"Only if you were there with me," I said, laughing as well.
I managed to convince Jack to go with me to the library then, though he grumbled about it. He said it was unnatural to spend time in a library when one was on break, but he came on the condition that he was allowed to bring his hot chocolate, which I agreed to as long as he put a lid on it to prevent it from spilling on any precious books. That just made Jack laugh at me more.
He sat at a table and looked through a book about Russia, though only because it was full of pictures. He wasn't quite as fond of reading as I was, to say the least. I went looking for books about auras, though I was pretty sure I had read all of the ones in the library already.
I finally found an ancient one that I hadn't read yet that was on the wrong shelf. It sat in between two books of crochet patterns. I had no idea what those were doing in the library.
I found what I was looking for almost right away, though I was disappointed that it didn't say more. I had flipped to a random page and it was right there on the top. The author had written that the only known white auras were those of the two gods, Amun and Isadora. Both were rumoured to have bright white auras that were almost blinding, though they were rarely seen and often hid their auras to escape detection by those who could see them.
"Find what you were looking for?" a voice asked from behind me. It startled me so badly I actually dropped the book on the floor. Adrian reached by me and picked it up before I could do so myself. He looked at the cover. "A book about auras? I can't say that I was expecting that."
"Well I can't say that I was expecting you to be here," I said, trying to calm my suddenly frenzied heart. "I thought you'd gone like almost everyone else." I tried to grab the book from him, but he held it out of my reach, flipping through the pages.
"I guess you didn't bother to ask your friend over there if I was still here. I'm curious, was that because you didn't care, or was it because you didn't want him to know that you were looking for me?" He asked. He grinned at me in a way that made me want to hit him, which was unusual for me, since I didn't have violent tendencies. I glared at him instead.
"Have a nice day," I said sarcastically, and tried to stalk off. I couldn't because he had grabbed my arm when I turned away, and he had a strong grip.
"Juliet, wait a second. You never answered my question."
I shivered slightly when he said my name. It was the first time I ever heard him say it. "Which question?" I asked angrily, trying to hide my reaction.
"The first one," he answered. "Did you find what you were looking for?"
"Hey man, back off," I heard Jack say from behind me. I jumped at the sound of his voice. Adrian, however, did not let go of my arm. He continued to wait for an answer.
"What difference does it make to you?" I snapped. "You stopped talking to me weeks ago."
"Juliet, come on," Jack said. "Let's go see if lunch is ready."
Adrian continued to ignore him. "I was angry, and I still am, but that doesn't stop me from being curious."
"It should," I said, and pulled away from his hand. He didn't stop me that time when I turned around and left with Jack.
"What was that all about?" Jack asked cautiously once we were sitting in the cafeteria.
"Nothing," I said, taking a bite of food to avoid talking further.
"It didn't look like nothing. Adrian looked possessive and you looked angry. Is there something going on?" Jack asked, sounding sad. It hurt me for him to feel that way, which is probably why I never mentioned Adrian around him. He didn't even know that he was in my calculus class.
"Really Jack, it was nothing. Adrian and I kind of used to be friends, but then I did something that he didn't like and he got angry and stopped talking to me. I don't know why he started talking to me today, but he came out of nowhere."
"I didn't know you two were friends. I only saw you with him once, and it was at the ball. He always seems to be alone."
"We have a class together," I explained. "We started talking there."
"So why did you stop talking? What did you do that made him angry?" From what he was feeling, I could tell that Jack thought I had done something completely different than what had actually happened. He seemed to think that I had made a move on Adrian. Clearly he still didn't know that Adrian had kissed me first, and hadn't since that day.
"It's not what you think, but I'd rather not explain."
"How am I supposed to trust you if you never talk to me? I feel like you have a lot of secrets from me. I never felt that way before we got here." Jack sounded really hurt now, and it made me cringe. My attempts to protect him were doing more harm than good. It was time to tell him the truth, though I feared what would happen when I did. I knew it would hurt him, but at least he would understand what was going on.
"I know how you feel about me Jack," I started. "I care about you a lot, but I'm not in love with you. I don't want to hurt you. Your friendship means more to me than anything else in my life, and I don't ever want to lose that."
"I know you care about me Jules, and I'm content with just that. I just can't trust you if you keep lying to me."
"I know, and I'm sorry. I should have told you about Adrian sooner, but I didn't know how you would react since you clearly don't like him."
"Tell me what about Adrian?"
"I like him, Jack. I don't know why, but I do. He kissed me the night of the ball, but he hasn't since, though we talked a lot. Then I did something that he didn't like. I went down to the rooms beneath the school on the night of the second full moon of the school year."
Jack looked shocked first, then angry. "You did what?! Do you have any idea how dangerous that was? Even I might have hurt you in a situation like that, and Adrian's way worse than I am!"
"I guess I didn't under
stand before I went, but I learned that well enough when he tried to kill me."
Jack turned pale. "I'm going to kill him."
"Don't be ridiculous. If he'd succeeded I wouldn't be here, would I? Mr. Ramirez was there, and he stopped Adrian. He didn't really know what he was doing. I could see that in his eyes. I opened the door and he merely reacted instinctively, and I don't hold that against him. It was more my fault than his for thinking he wouldn't hurt me."
"But you could have been killed!"
"Yes, and I think that's why he's been mad at me. He said today that he still is, but I can't help but be a little happy that he's at least talking to me again."
"You should stay away from him Jules. He's dangerous and unstable, and he'll only end up hurting you. I'm not saying that because I want you for myself. I'm telling you that as a friend."
I sighed. "I know that everyone sees him that way, but I really believe that there's more to him than he likes to show."
"Well, if you're so intent on being stupid, at least be careful, okay? I can't stop you from seeing him, but if he does anything to hurt you I'm not going to let him get away with it."
"We aren't together anyway, Jack."
"Not yet, but you want to be, for some reason beyond my understanding."
I couldn't argue with that. I did want to be with Adrian, no matter how much he avoided me. I had probably screwed things up today by being so rude, but I had been upset that he was still mad at me. I didn't know what to do.
Jack was shaken by what I had told him, and I could tell that he was hurt and trying not to be. He was also angrier than I had ever seen him, though he showed no outward sign of it, and he was angry at Adrian, not me. If he had been mad at me he would have shown it. I worried that he might try to do something stupid. It didn't help that they were roommates.
