by Kitty Parker
"They've been going out for a month," Emma observed blandly, gesturing at me with the French fry she had been holding, "The Matchmaker note was sent on October 26th, and their first date was November 2nd. It's already December."
Brock and I gaped at her. I knew she saw everything, by her own admission, but that was just stalkerish. Except not even my stalkers knew about my own notes with the Matchmaker.
"What?" she asked after swallowing the French fry, "I'm acquainted with Joe. Vaguely. I hear things. And anyway," her eyes grew as cold as jade as she glared at me, "Why do you think the Matchmaker's so useless?"
"Because she tries to build love," I told her curtly, this not being a subject I wanted to talk about, "Love happens where it will, not at her whim." Emma's raised eyebrows told me what she thought of that argument.
"Who sad anything about love?" she retorted, suddenly deadly serious and with more passion than I had ever heard her talk about anything else, and I saw a quick glance at Brock that I couldn't quite interpret, "Love's just an illusion anyway. The Matchmaker finds people whoa re compatible but wouldn't normally find each other for some reason."
I stared incredulously at her. How could she say something like that? I honestly had no idea. Not when Jack had married her mother when he could have had so much better, when she saw the rare couples who actually looked happy and were completely engrossed with each other. Her cynicism was immediately apparent, the moment you talked to her, but this went far deeper than that. This was probably rooted in one of those many secrets that I didn't yet know- but that didn't mean it was right. I knew love existed- hell, I saw it whenever my parents were home, not that that was often.
"Well, maybe there's a reason they don't see each other," I pointed out, setting any love arguments aside. You can't argue with faith. "Grace and Marrato live in different worlds. Who knows how they'll deal with those colliding?"
Emma opened her mouth to argue, but Brock cut her off with a weary command that had enough grief in it to make us listen.
"Guys," he ordered, his own experience making me obey him this once. I don't know why Emma did- she was perceptive enough to hear the sad frustration in his voice. "Just let it be."
She shrugged and went back to finishing her food- she ate infernally quickly- and I struck up an unrelated conversation with Brock. She didn't speak, but from what I could see, she was deep in thought, and would shoot odd, curious glances in our direction every once in a while.
Lex wandered over, a crowd of cheerleaders trailing in his massive wake. They grabbed seats in a mass of jostling for position and fake, trilling laughter.
"Have you heard about Grace?" Lex began, but I interrupted him before he could bring up the argument again- for Brock's sake, of course. I would have been happy to beat Emma's metaphorical face into the ground.
"We already discussed it, right Em-" I stopped. Sometime, somehow, she had disappeared. If I didn't know better, I would have said she could teleport, with how she kept appearing and vanishing. "Where's Emma?" I asked in confusion, peering over the heads in the lunchroom in a vain attempt to find her.
"She probably left," Lex told me astutely, shoveling food into his mouth with astonishing speed, 'She doesn't like crowds. Or talking. Or people in general."
I shrugged and returned to my food, ignoring the fluttering girl next to me who was trying to flirt. If she didn't want to talk to me, so be it. But I would find out more about her. Someday.
o0O0o0O0o
When I opened my locker after lunch, one of the Matchmaker's plain pieces of notepaper fell out. I grabbed it quickly- by definition the notes weren't distinctive, but I couldn't risk anyone knowing of my correspondence- and leaned into my locker to read it. It was written in her usual copperplate print, but the pen strokes were far darker than usual.
If you hate me, why do you want me?
I grinned as I replaced the note, my eyes cold and calculating. I was intriguing her. Good. Human nature meant she would want to find out more about me, and the net could close about her. The plan was working perfectly.
Chapter 18
* * *
Emma
* * *
I looked drearily from the freshmen filled bus, to the snow whipping in the wind outside the school, and back again. This is why I hated winter with such a passion- ignoring, of course, the fact that I disliked all the other seasons for other reasons. I could either run home and arrive frozen, or take the bus and be irritated to death. Unless, of course, I wanted to let Allan drive me home, which didn't seem so unattractive anymore- except that Allan had a football meeting and was staying too late. Karma for something, I'm sure.
At least it wasn't one of the days I was working- than I would be forced to run. Though that would at least make my decision clear, and I wouldn't be mired in this evil conundrum: which was the better way to die, freezing or annoyance?
I didn't know my face was reflecting my morbid thoughts until a voice jolted me out of them. I hid my surprise well, I hoped- it wouldn't do to let people know I was fallible, especially him- but my glare may have given my anger away.
"Why so mad?" Darien asked, striding over as he spotted me before he left the warm school building. He was thankfully devoid of his usual flock- Brock would be at the football meeting, but I didn't know how he managed to lose his groupies. That was always, he assured me, a difficult task filled with many intrepid adventures. I didn't think highly enough of their intellect to believe him.
"Because I'm going to die before I get home," I told him sourly, curing up in my sweatshirt to try to revel in the blessed heat before I would have to venture into the glacial outside and giving the snow-covered ground a baleful look.
"Pity," he drawled absentmindedly. I transferred my evil look to him. He gave me one of his slow, mocking smiles that made me simultaneously want to hit him and bask in its glow (generally- no, always- I decided on the former). Occasionally, I empathized with the girls who followed him everywhere. "But why?"
"I'm facing imminent death either by freezing or by aggravation," I groaned, drawing my hood over my face. He raised an eyebrow questioningly at my dramatics, inviting me to elaborate. I did so, if grudgingly- while I've never been one to enjoy airing my troubles, complaining always made me feel better afterwards. And complaining to a- not friend, I hesitated to call anyone a friend anymore, but Darien was certainly more than my myriads of casual acquaintances- couldn't hurt.
"I could walk- well, run- home, or I could take a bus filled with," I shuddered melodramatically, "freshmen. Including Mac Stonewell." That boy was perhaps the most annoying child in the universe. He was pompous, stupid, a know-it-all, pretentious, and he persisted in hitting on me every time he saw me. Why did it have to be the one guy- okay, one of the guys- who I truly despised was the only one who flirted with me?
"Why can't you drive?" Darien inquired, surveying the bus with cold contempt. I would bet basically everything I owned that Darien had never ridden a bus in his life, unless it was some sort of tour bus.
"No car," I replied curtly, glancing at my watch. The bus would leave in 5 minutes. I had to make a decision- but procrastinating was so much fun!
"Why not?" Darien asked blankly. Someone who could drive not having a car was a foreign idea to him, I realized. Sometimes, his lack of knowledge about other classes contrasting so sharply with his air of worldly wisdom shocked me. "Won't Mr. Lexington get you one?"
"Yeah, but I didn't want one." More the fool me, of course, but I hadn't realized just how foolish a decision that was until I found out that public transportation didn't run out here. How was I supposed to know that? It had never applied to me before- since when had I had a choice of cars?
"You're an idiot," he informed me loftily. I didn't argue- it was true- but he prudently took a step back before I could attack him simply to keep him in training. The boy was learning, I will give him that- it took Allan a whole summer to realize that after being insulted, I would hit the offender- not that he in
sulted anyone, of course.
"But-" I began to try to justify my idiocy, "I couldn't have- oh, shit!" My bus was pulling away. "Damn!" I bashed my head gently against the wall. I probably wouldn't have ended up taking the bus- I felt like I had to take a shower after even spotting Stonewell- I did not appreciate the decision being taken from me.
"Looks like you're going to walk," Darien observed idly. My look shot daggers at him. Thank you, Captain Obvious. I knew I would be wading home through knee deep snow and trying not to freeze in the blizzard currently going on- I did not need him to rub it in.
"No freaking duh," I spat, rolling my eyes. He shrugged my anger off like a duck did water. I think it was that skill that allowed him to tolerate me for any period of time, not that he was good at that.
"You could just get a ride home with Lex," he suggested, all false helpfulness. It just showed how annoyed I was that I didn't immediately reject his proposal for the sole reason that it would mean admitting I was wrong- but I was freaking cold, and his attitude was not helping.
"He's at that football meeting," I replied tersely. Damn early winters. It should not be snowing this much in mid-December. Hell, it shouldn't snow this much ever. Or at all. I was so moving to Florida as soon as possible.
"You could wait." He just had to be reasonable today, when I just wanted to wallow in self-pity. Why did boys always have the worst timing?
"I actually have something to do as soon as I get home," I retorted belligerently, but he didn't deign to take the bait.
"Coffeehouse?"
"No." I didn't offer any more information, he didn't ask. He could be wonderful about not pressing me about stuff I didn't want to talk about. But it was in those annoyingly kind moments of his that I would be willing to tell him stuff- talk about irony, not that I was complaining.
We stood in silence after my skilled conversation stopper- my specialty- as I gather my courage to go out into the bitter weather for the trek home. Finally, he sighed and shoved off the wall he had been leaning against to stand.
"Well, come on," he ordered brusquely, "Neither of us have all day."
"What?" I snapped. It was all well and good for him to tell me to hurry up; he didn't have to run home in what was as good as a freaking blizzard. He had his nice cozy car.
"I have to be home for Troy, you have your mystery thing to get to- we have to leave," he explained not so patiently (I made a note to tell him what a horrible teacher he would make), herding me towards the door, barely giving me enough time to grab my backpack. "And if you don't hurry up, you're going to have to wait for Lex, because I'm leaving."
Was he actually offering me a ride? Where had the standoffish boy who refused to even say my name gone?
"Emma!" He had gotten ahead of me- not hard, with his legs being twice as long as mine, "Come. Now." Oh. There he was. I was of half a mind to refuse, just out of habit and pure stubbornness- I had never been good at obeying orders, and following him went against all my pride- but the icy blast of wind that hit me when he opened the door to usher me outside decided me. Pride was a wonderful thing, but I refused to freeze because of it.
I jogged up to Darien and trotted after him as he strode to his car, walking in the path he cut with both body and will. He may not be good at many things, but as a windbreak he is quite satisfactory. We hurried to his Mercedes- I was pretty sure that it was only one of his cars- and he quickly threw himself into the driver's side. It took me a bit longer to get out of the cold; he had to move some stuff before the passenger seat was clear enough to sit on.
"Do you have enough crap?" I asked, picking a book off the seat as I sat down. I examined the book idly, wanting to know what kind of literature Darien read. He didn't seem to be the sort who kept a library in his car, like I would if I had a car- but the book was sitting there for the world to see.
The nearly cubical book's cover had a centerpiece of a dragon, with a man helping a woman to mount it. The bright reds and golds were cut with liberal splashes of other bright, rich colors. I glanced at the title, but before I had time to study it, Darien snatched the book away.
"It's Troy's," he muttered, tossing it into the back seat. If it had been anyone else, I would have thought I saw a blush, but his cheeks were too tan to detect one- yet another reason to be envious of tanned people. I grinned. I may not have seen much- but I recognized the book and the author.
"Oh really?" I kept my face perfectly straight. This was what long years of practice were good for, after all, "Most 10 year olds read books called Wizard's First Rule"
"They do," he insisted, lips twitching at my earnest, unquestioning tone, "almost as many as read War and Peace." Personally, I thought he was reaching a bit high in his comparisons. Terry Goodkind may have been a good author, but he didn't measure up to Tolstoy.
"Troy seems like a very erudite boy," I agreed serenely, my calm façade not shifting in the slightest. Impassive expressions were my forte- I wouldn't break until after he did.
"That he is," Darien affirmed, mouth clenched in a vain attempt to contain his mirth. The competition had been declared- even a he pulled out of the school and onto the main road, the battle lines were drawn. He continued, resolutely not meeting my eyes, "reading Huck Finn in the cradle and such things."
"What varied taste!" I exclaimed, only my eyes twinkling mockingly as we passed other cars- Darien had to be going over the speed limit. Ah… speed. I had forgotten what it was like- no one else I knew now drove so recklessly. Allan was a conscientious driver when sober, and I hadn't driven with anyone else my age since- for years. "Fantasy, classics and adventure novels!" I covered my open mouth with a hand, eyes widened in mock surprise as I feigned fainting back into my seat. My impeccable acting talent worked- or maybe my lack thereof worked better. Either way, it broke him. His face cracked into a broad grin, one that I rarely saw on him. This time, there was no either/or- Darien's smile put the nonexistent sun to shame.
"Damn you, Emma," he cursed with no conviction, only laughter in his voice and navy eyes, "Why do you have to be the only one who can keep a straight face longer than me?"
My only reply was an enigmatic smirk as we sped past the poor people on the streets. I was warm, would be home on time, was actually having fun (that happened all too rarely lately), and I had just schooled Darien. All was right with the world.
* * *
Darien
* * *
I accelerated out of Emma's driveway, a smile still on my face and a competitive glint still in my eyes- she may have beaten me this time, but the war was far from over. As I headed home- slower than I had on the way to Emma's, I had noticed Emma's grin at how fast I had gone- I fumbled in all the junk in the back for my book. I didn't want to lose it in the black hole that was my back seat; I was almost finished.
I didn't know why I was so reluctant to admit that the book was mine. Emma was no idiot, she had to know it was mine- the argument was all for form's sake. She wouldn't criticize me, not like if Jess or someone saw me reading it. She read the same sort of stuff shamelessly- and Emma may have been many things, but a hypocrite wasn't one of them. My best guess was that old habits die hard- I'm still not used to a friend who won't ridicule me for reading fantasy, or even reading at all.
I didn't get more than a few yards into the house before Troy came barreling into me. He threw his arms around my waist and buried his face in my shirt as he hadn't done for a while, but not before I caught a glimpse of blue eyes dulled with tears. My smile died with my good mood and I knelt down to meet his eyes, gently detaching his clutching arms.
"What's up, kid?" I asked as tenderly as I could- not very well. I'm not a kind person, as basically anyone could tell. Even if Emma may think I am after seeing how I treat my brother.
"Dad-dad-dad said he wouldn't be home for Christmas!" he sobbed, this time into my shoulder. I drew him into a warm hug, letting him cry himself out as I tried not to explode with anger. No matter what else my parents may have done, or not d
one, I had thought Christmas was sacred. Although I had been alone for Christmas before, with only an overpaid babysitter, that had been before Troy or when he was really young. Ever since Troy could remember, or parents had been home for Christmas, if at no other time. What the hell were they thinking?
Strong, steady footsteps made me look up. When I saw who was approaching, I disengaged myself from Troy and rose, face as impassive as I could make it. Troy pressed against me still, and I slung a comforting arm across his shoulder.
My father stopped in front of us, grey eyes as cold as the weather. It felt weird, being able to look straight into his eyes- for so long he had loomed over me, a larger than life figure. But not anymore- I was nearly the adult he had always treated me as.
I've been told I look like my father, and I can't deny it. We have the same long, lanky build- quick rather than bulky. I have his dirty blonde hair as opposed to my mother and Troy's corn silk gold, and his well-defined, aristocratic features. But I've always staunchly maintained that the only thing I have form his are his looks- not his manner, or his lack of affection. Or so I've always hoped- lately, I've been wondering if maybe I'm more like him than I thought.
"Darien," his musical voice was deeper than mine, but the timbre was the same. Just by hearing us you could tell we were related- the air of command was the same.
"Father." There was no emotion in my voice, like he always required- in that, at least, he had succeed, even if he didn't care about anything I did.
"I see Troy already gave you the news," he said, eyes barely flicking to the tear-stained face of his youngest son before resting on my own face, as cold as his.
