by Amanda Ashby
“Okay, so tell me the truth, do you like the green one or this silvery black one best?”
“Green.” Nash didn’t bother looking up from the leather-bound book that he was reading as he leaned against the side of the cart with the kind of casual ease that Cassidy could never hope to muster.
“Are you sure you’re not just saying that so we can go home?” Cassidy put the crystals down on the counter and pushed the book away from Nash’s face. As she did, a group of girls who had been halfheartedly inspecting some Halloween-inspired masks suddenly looked over with interest.
Not that Cassidy was really surprised, since girls always looked at Nash with interest (and so did a lot of guys, for that matter), because the simple truth was that with his pale blue eyes, sooty lashes, and alabaster skin, which looked as if it had been carved from marble, Nash Peterson was a divine specimen of heavenly perfection, not to mention a certified genius, and someone had to be dead not to admire him. Unfortunately, they might as well be dead for the good their attention to Nash would do them, since at the age of twelve Nash had declared that he was asexual and despite all the interest he attracted wherever he went, four years later, he hadn’t shown any signs of changing his mind.
In fact, as far as Cassidy was aware, she was the only girl who hadn’t fallen for him. But that was probably because she had known him since fourth grade, when he had helped her finish her science project, resulting in her very first A-plus.
“Of course I’m saying that so we can go home,” he immediately agreed, oblivious to the attention he was receiving. “Cass, we’ve been at the mall for two hours looking at crystals. Two hours. I do believe that this is what Dante meant when he described the ninth circle of hell, because look at this place. It’s devoid of warmth, life, and light. In fact, I can feel the coldness creeping into my veins already, trying to isolate me into an eternity of icy solitude and suffering, where time has no meaning and there’s no relief from the torment.”
Okay, and the other reason they were such good friends was because Cassidy was the only person who didn’t think it was weird that Nash quoted Dante like most people quoted Glee, and that he was more comfortable reading about how the Renaissance astronomers made the lenses for their telescopes than going to a school football game.
“Is there any chance that you might be exaggerating?” Cassidy inquired as the girls, finally realizing that Nash wasn’t going to acknowledge them, sulkily moved on to another vending cart.
“Fine, so perhaps it’s not the ninth circle,” Nash grudgingly agreed before he glanced around the mall at the ugly mosaic walls and the tinkling fake fountain just to the left of them. “But it’s definitely the fifth or fourth. Can you please just choose one you like?”
“It’s not about what I like,” Cassidy reminded him as she randomly picked up a large amethyst cluster and inspected it. “I need to try to figure out what my dad would like.”
“Your dad would like you to buy something. I’m shutting in five minutes,” the vendor called out as he started to pack away some mood rings, causing Cassidy to tighten her grip on the amethyst; her dad would be anything but happy if he knew what she was doing.
In fact, he had specifically told her that he didn’t want any get-well cards, stuffed animals, or flowers. And while technically she wasn’t buying any of those things, she knew he would still hate the idea that she was fussing over him just because he was going to have knee surgery tomorrow. But despite his assurances that he was going to be in the hospital only overnight and that after about six weeks of physical therapy he would be back to his best, Cassidy couldn’t help but worry. Which was why she was determined to find the perfect good-luck present. Something that—
“Hello. I’m not getting any younger here,” the vendor snapped. Cassidy quickly put the amethyst back, her eyes moving past the gaudy Halloween trinkets and quickly skimming over the collection of temporary tattoos, and . . . Actually, that wasn’t such a bad idea. She paused to take a second glance at the tattoos.
Her dad had been threatening for years to get a tattoo. Obviously, right now wasn’t the best time for him to get a real one, but a temporary one would be perfect. She picked up the first packet. The tattoo was of two black roses branching out like a love heart, their twisted, leafy stems in perfect symmetry with each other.
“Are you serious?” Nash leaned toward her and raised an eyebrow. “A tattoo? Won’t your mom go ballistic?”
“My mom isn’t the one having surgery,” Cassidy reminded him. “Plus, my dad will love it. What do you think?”
“Weelllll,” Nash admitted as he examined the tattoo for a moment before handing it back. “It is quite appropriate. Did you know that, while the Victorians considered the black rose to be a mark of death because it didn’t actually exist in nature, the Irish thought of it as a symbol of hope in their efforts to break away from the red rose of England?”
“Nash, you’re a genius!” she said. Her dad was originally from Belfast, and though his brogue had been watered down from years of living in California, he still considered himself an Irish son.
“I am pretty amazing,” Nash agreed.
“And so completely modest,” Cassidy teased as she waved the tattoo in the air. “I do like it, but I think I’d better test it first in case it looks stupid once it’s on.”
“Please, you’re killing me,” the vendor moaned.
“Don’t worry. I’ll pay for it, and then if it’s good, I’ll get a second one.” Cassidy thrust a ten-dollar bill at him before he could say anything else.
“Are you seriously going to put it on now?” Nash looked at her, and even the cart vendor was eyeing her with interest.
“Of course. Why not?” She gave Nash the packet and instructed him to open it while she fumbled around in her oversize purse, which was filled with far too many things. Nash had long ago commented that just because she was bad at making decisions didn’t mean she had to carry her entire wardrobe and makeup collection in her purse. Not that he had complained last week when he needed a tape measure to determine if the model ship he wanted to buy would fit in the backseat of his mom’s car. It was also handy for when she wanted to apply a temporary tattoo—it didn’t take her long to fish out a bottle of water and a makeup pad.
She quickly squirted some water onto the pad and then took the tattoo from Nash. She pressed it onto the inside of her arm and then smoothed it over with the damp pad. A minute later she peeled the back off.
Her whole arm tingled as she inspected the tattoo.
The body of the two roses was inky black, and the leafed stems seemed almost to be moving and twisting on her arm. More important, as she looked at it, instead of the indecision that normally plagued her she felt an overwhelming sense of rightness. She loved it, and so would her dad. She held up her arm to admire it one last time when Nash nudged her.
“Why is that guy staring at you?”
“Where?” Cassidy looked up to see a disheveled guy over by the escalators staring at her intently. He was dressed like an extra from some B-grade King Arthur remake. She let out a groan. “Actually, I think the real question to ask is: Why is someone wearing armor at a mall in Southern California?”
“It’s not armor,” Nash corrected as he narrowed his eyes with interest. “It looks like chain mail to me. Oh, and he’s coming over here.”
She let out a sigh. While Nash, with his stunning good looks and his complete indifference, managed to attract attention from just about everyone, Cassidy, with her thick, dark, auburn-colored hair and mossy green eyes, seemed to attract only the weirdos. In fact, being approached by a guy wearing armor, or—she hastily corrected—chain mail, probably wouldn’t even make it into her top five weirdo encounters.
She braced herself as he finally reached them. Up close, she realized that he was probably only in his early twenties, but the long, matted blond hair that hung limply around his pale face made him look older. He was sweating profusely, no doubt from the heavy chain mai
l that was smeared with dirt and oily black smudges, and there were two red, feverish spots on his sallow cheeks.
The guy pointed to the tattoo on Cassidy’s arm and began to speak in a rapid-fire language that she didn’t recognize. Yup, definitely weird. Cassidy stared at him blankly, which only caused him to speak faster. She shot Nash a helpless look.
“Do you know what he’s saying?”
“No, actually, I don’t.” Nash, who went to stay with his grandmother in Italy each summer and spoke three languages, looked surprised. “I mean, most of it sounds like mutant Latin, but then a few of the words are undeniably French. I think he is saying ‘Armand’ over and over again, but apart from that, I’ve got nothing.” He turned to the guy. “Armand. Parlez-vous français?”
This seemed to piss the guy off more, and he stabbed at Cassidy’s arm, speaking even louder.
“Nash, you know, this is getting creepy, and—” Cassidy started to say, but before she could finish, the guy stopped yelling as a flash of pain seemed to ripple across his pale face. He doubled over, clutching at the tarnished chain mail, as if trying to claw it away from his chest, his breath coming out in ragged gasps. As he straightened and elbowed his way past her, her large purse slipped off her shoulder and landed in a messy heap on the floor.
Cassidy probably would’ve landed on the floor, too, if Nash hadn’t stuck his hand out and steadied her. But instead of stopping to see if she was okay, the guy melted away into the thinning crowd of late-afternoon shoppers.
“Okay, so what just happened there?” Cassidy rubbed her shoulder.
“No idea.” Nash shook his head as he gallantly dropped to his knees and gathered up the various lip glosses and notebooks and so on that had spilled out when the guy had knocked into her purse. Then he stood up and handed the purse, once more filled with Cassidy’s belongings, back to her. “But it was definitely unusual.”
“I know, right?” She slung the bag back over her shoulder and scanned the crowd, but despite the fact that he looked like a homeless guy in full body armor—they saw no sign of him. “So what should we do now? Do we report him to security? Call the police?”
“And tell them what? That some dude spoke to you in a strange language and was dressed like a weirdo?” the vendor chimed in from where he continued to pack up his cart. “Because, hello, news flash: this is the mall. It’s like a magnet for guys like him. And you know, considering that he actually had on both his shoes and showed no visible signs of body lice, that almost makes him look normal for around here.”
“Normal? He knocked my purse off my shoulder,” Cassidy protested.
“Not exactly illegal. Did he take anything?” the vendor asked, looking remarkably indifferent to the whole situation.
“Well, no,” Cassidy was forced to reply since, if anything, her purse felt heavier than it had before, not that she was going to give Nash any more to tease her about. “But what if he goes and freaks out someone else? Are you seriously saying that we shouldn’t do anything?”
“No,” the vendor corrected in the same bored voice, “I’m seriously saying that I don’t give two hoots what you do as long as you don’t drag me into it. Now, are you going to buy another tattoo or not? Because it’s my bowling night, and I want to get out of here.”
Cassidy was about to open her mouth again before she realized that he was probably right. The mall was full of weirdly dressed guys.
“Fine,” she muttered as she handed over a twenty-dollar bill and waited for her change. All that mattered was that she had found her dad the perfect present.
THREE
It was almost dark by the time Nash dropped her home in his mom’s late-model Ford, which he seemed to love driving just a little bit too much for someone who was supposedly all about the romantic and philosophical ideals of the Renaissance period. Cassidy waited until his taillights had disappeared down the street before she walked up the path to the neat single-story house in which she had grown up. She grabbed the doorknob, her own tattoo tingling as she did so.
“So how did your trip to the mall go? Did you buy a new dress?” Her dad limped up the hallway, looking like he always did. His dark hair, with its odd gray streak, was pushed back from his face to reveal tanned skin with just a small scattering of wrinkles around his calm navy eyes. But despite his serenity, she knew he found it frustrating that his tennis habit had been reduced from playing three times a week to just watching matches on television, because every time he moved, it was painful.
“Not exactly.” Cassidy shook her head, not least since most of her clothes came from the vintage shop down at the strip mall. At first, she had started going there to piss off her mom, who was fastidious to a fault, but after a while she’d grown to love the idea of having something that no one else had. Plus, without as much choice, it made decision making a lot easier. Then she realized that her dad was looking at her, so she fumbled around in her overloaded purse until she found the packet of tattoos. “I was actually there to get something for you.”
“I thought that—” he started to say, but she quickly cut him off.
“Don’t worry, it’s not stuffed and doesn’t involve balloons, fluffy bunnies, or sappy poems that mention the word heart,” she promised as she handed the packet over. She caught her breath as he studied it in the same thoughtful manner he used for everything. “According to Nash, in Ireland the black rose is a symbol of—”
“Hope,” her dad finished off, and then grinned. “And I love it.”
“Well, that’s lucky.” Cassidy returned his smile and held up her arm so he could see the matching one. “Because I got one, too.”
“And it looks good,” he said when he had finished inspecting it. “But Cass, if I wear this tattoo, you have to promise that you’ll stop worrying about tomorrow. It’s a simple operation, and I’ll be signing up for tap-dancing lessons before you know it.”
“All surgery carries risks,” Cassidy corrected him in a stern voice, quoting something that she’d read on the Internet.
“You know what I mean.” He put his hands on her shoulders, his navy eyes wide and earnest. “So, what do you say? Will you stop worrying if I wear it?”
“Fine,” she relented. Especially since Nash, whose dad was a doctor, had been telling her the same thing for the last week.
“Good. Now, if I remember correctly, you owe me a game of Halo. Unless, of course, you’re trying to wriggle out of it for fear of being beaten,” he said in a teasing voice, which Cassidy found ridiculously comforting, since her dad had never managed to beat her once, not even when Nash had dared her to play with her eyes closed.
“Darn, you saw through my cunning plan,” she countered as the pair of them headed toward the small den, the familiarity of it all washing away the last of her concern. However, it didn’t last long—before they got even three paces, the sharp beep of the garage door opening rang out, and her dad came to a halt.
“Sounds like your mom’s home from work. Which reminds me, I forgot to tell you that she’s made dinner reservations for the three of us. For sushi.”
Cassidy’s happiness immediately evaporated and was replaced by annoyance. “Sushi? Dad, you hate sushi, and if she had paid any attention to us in the last five years, she might’ve known that.”
“Don’t be like that.” Her dad shot her a cajoling smile. “She’s trying.”
“Yes, very trying,” Cassidy retorted before reminding herself that stressing her dad out the night before he went into the hospital wasn’t part of her game plan. Especially since her mom would probably manage to do that all on her own. “Fine, sushi it is. Yum.”
“Thanks, honey.” Her dad looked grateful. “I know it’s hard for you to understand, but I really am happy that she’s back.”
Well, at least one of us is, Cassidy thought, just as the door leading from the garage to the house opened and the citrusy scent of her mom’s perfume caught in her nose. Her mother’s reddish-brown hair, so like Cassidy’s own, was ta
med into a neat chignon and she was dressed in a pencil skirt and plain blouse that Cassidy was pretty sure she ordered in bulk online to save her the bother of shopping.
“Hello, you two, I hope you’re both— Good grief . . . what is this?” she demanded in distaste, her eyes immediately honing in on the tattoo packet before dismissing it with a shrug. “So anyway, Cassidy, I was speaking to Joanna Thompson today in the office.”
Cassidy let out a weary sigh. Here we go again. Up until two months ago, Cassidy didn’t have an opinion on Colin Thompson, apart from the fact that he went to her school, wore dorky T-shirts, and spent too much time in the science labs. However, ever since her mom had moved back from Boston and set up a new office here in California, she had hired Colin’s mom, Joanna, to do the administrative work, and now it seemed as if there was a never-ending series of conversations about what Colin was doing.
“Yes,” her mom continued, either oblivious to Cassidy’s annoyance or merely choosing to ignore it. “Colin was telling her all about the school production. Why didn’t you tell me that Raiser Heights High is going to be doing Romeo and Juliet?”
“Er, same reason that I didn’t tell you that the Jell-O was green today,” Cassidy retorted, still stung by her mom’s harsh reaction to, then dismissal of, the tattoos. “Because it’s no big deal.”
