“So,” Marley says. “Is he your boyfriend?”
“No.”
“Do you want him to be?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. I have some issues.”
“Don’t we all? Besides, I told you, Tristan has some issues too. I just don’t know what exactly they are.”
Tristan’s issues probably aren’t like mine. He’s not terrified of things that go bump in the night. My hand falls to below my belly button and down the side. A reminder of how unfriendly darkness can be.
“You’ll find out next week at the fair,” Marley decides. “If he tries to get you alone, then he wants more. If he is glued to Mateo’s side, he thinks it was a mistake.”
Could he think that? Would he think that? I hope not. I’d temporarily forgotten about the fair, but now that Marley mentions it, I know I sure won’t sleep as well as I did the night before.
The morning of the fair, the first thing I see is Marley’s blue-varnished toenails in my face. Every time she sleeps over it’s like this. I often wake up looking as if I’ve been in a bar fight. I slip out of the bed without jarring her and grab my yoga pants and sweatshirt from the back of my desk chair. As I quietly sneak out the door, the sun begins to peek over the horizon.
I love to run at dawn more than any other time of day. Dawn signals that it’s a new day. One with no expectations or pretenses, just a new day filled with the possibility of outdoing the one that came before it. A measure of time where mistakes you made are in the past and the future is limitless. Sure, the feeling is temporary, like the sunrise itself, but it’s good to wake up hopeful again.
My feet pump full throttle. The adrenaline spikes through me and it feels good, urging me to keep moving. Yesterday I was unsure about the prospect of where things might go with Tristan or even if I could allow them to go farther, but today, with the dawn, it seems more promising.
He touched me. He held me. He kissed me, and something came undone inside. Something I’d suppressed for so long because the idea of letting it out was suffocating.
I return home to find that Marley is up and showered, her creamy skin glowing beneath a stark white towel. My desk looks like the cosmetics counter at the department store upchucked.
I point to it. “What’s this?”
“If you’re going to officially be the one to snag Tristan Banks,” she says, “you’re going to need a little help.”
“First of all, don’t you think it’s fair to say I kind of already did the snagging? And secondly, we should be making you over. Unless you can apply some confidence with your stipple brush?”
“You’re so funny, Emma. Sit down.”
I’ll be the first to admit that Marley does a good job. Okay, a great job. Once she’s finished, I look like I walked out of a magazine. My makeup is spot-on, not too overdone but enough to accentuate my good features and mask the bad ones. My hair is falling in perfect waves and even in jeans and a silky halter top, I look like a million bucks.
Marley smiles, admiring her work. “There is no way he’s not going to try to get you alone.”
FOURTEEN
Tristan
Mateo is at my house an hour before we told Emma and Marley we’d pick them up. I’m not even sure why he leaves. He should just move in and pay rent. We play Call of Duty and listen to music, but I’m antsy as hell. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Emma. I can tell Mat is antsy too because his foot is shaking like crazy.
“You all right?” I ask.
“I’m good, man,” he says. “Today’s my day, yeah?”
“Right, the day you secure Marley’s presence in your future.”
“Sí,” he says. “What about you? Did you sleep on it? What are you going to do with Emma?”
“Do with her? Dude, she’s not an item I can put inside my pocket.”
He rolls his eyes. “I mean are you going to grow a pair and tell her that you want more?”
If we were chicks, I would fly off the handle in some dramatic tirade about him being one to talk. He’s like the king of avoidance when it comes to confessing his feelings for Marley Scott. Instead, I stand up and punch him in the arm.
He grabs the spot where I made impact. “Ow. What was that for?”
“For you being a total hypocrite.”
His hand drops and he shrugs. “Fair enough.”
I eye the watch my dad bought me for my last birthday. “Let’s go. It’s three o’clock; they’re probably waiting.”
Mateo ejects himself from my couch and he looks like a kid who is about to see Santa Claus for the first time.
When we pull up to Emma’s place, Marley answers the door. Mateo says something, but all I hear is white noise because looking at Emma, who stands behind her friend, steals my senses.
She is stunning. It’s not like she’s done anything too different, but there is something, something about how she carries herself, her head held high, a smile pulling on the corners of her lips and a glint in her eye like she’s trying so hard to keep what happened between us under wraps. God, I want her under wraps.
Marley skips out of the house to Mateo’s side and he lazily throws his arm over her shoulder before he whispers something in her ear that makes her blush.
Emma follows quietly behind until my arm acts like it’s possessed and shoots out to stop her dead in her tracks. She eyes me expectantly and even though I stopped her on instinct, I’d better think of something damned good to say.
“I can’t stop thinking about you or how you taste.” There. I’ve professed it like an idiot.
Idiot or not, she smiles.
I hold the truck door open and when I slide onto the seat beside her, I say for her ears only, “You can come closer. Remember, I don’t bite.”
“Unless I ask,” she teases.
“That’s right, not unless you ask.”
The fairgrounds are packed. They stamp our hands so we can come and go without having to pay again. I get the bill for everyone and as soon as we go through the door, Marley tugs on Mat’s arm.
“Can you take me to the shooting range?”
“Can you handle a gun, querida? You’re pretty dainty.”
Marley laughs. “Don’t let my looks deceive you. I’m good.”
Mat smiles. “And I have excellent hand-eye coordination. Care to make a wager?”
“A wager?”
“Sí,” he says.
“I’m all ears.”
We don’t get to hear their wager, thank God, because they start to walk away. Mateo looks back. “Meet you at the tilt-a-whirl in an hour?”
I look at Emma. “Make it two.”
She blushes, looks down, and starts to walk in front of me, so I hook my finger through the belt loop on the back of her jeans. I place my mouth next to her ear. “What’s your rush, Peaches? Slow it down a little bit, huh?”
I can’t see the expression on her face, so it’s hard to tell if she thinks I’m a pain in the ass or not, but she nods and waits for me to catch up.
I lead her to the games section. There are water guns and archery and fishing, but she’s not impressed.
“These games are designed to make people lose,” she says. “They’re impossible to win.”
“The only place where impossible exists is in your mind, Em.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah,” I say. “It’s so and I’ll prove it. What game should I play?”
Her eyes dart around as she brings her finger to her mouth and bites her nail. “How about the milk bottles?”
“Easy,” I say. “Prepare to eat your words.”
“I’m ready,” she says.
I’ve done this a million times. Never to impress a girl, though, and somehow it adds to the pressure. The carny gives me three shots for five bucks and I whip the first baseball like my life
depends on it. The bottles topple easily. I repeat this with both the second and the third ball and have to take a moment to not come across as too impressed with myself, even if I am.
“Which one?” The carny sounds bored as he points to the various stuffed toys hanging from the game area.
I lean in close to Emma. “Which one do you want?”
She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and points to a bear that has buttons for eyes. The left eye is a couple of millimeters off from the right, so he’s a little lopsided. Pretty much every other stuffed toy is good, but this one has a glitch. I love that she chooses it.
“I love that about you,” I say out loud.
“Love what?”
“That you can see the beauty in imperfection,” I tell her. “You should put that to practice on yourself and the people you see every day.” I don’t have any delusions that she’s going to open up to me and tell me how she got that scar, but I hope I can inspire a little more confidence in how she sees herself.
The carny gives the bear to Emma and she hugs it to her chest. “Thank you for winning him for me.”
“You’re welcome. What are you going to call him?”
“Genesis,” she says.
“Genesis?”
“Yep,” she says.
“Good name, but why?”
She looks at her shoes and says, “It means beginning,” before she turns and starts to walk away.
I follow quickly because there is no way I’m letting that lip-chewing, hair-twirling hot mess get away that easy. I reach out and snake my arms around her waist and tug, bringing her close to me.
“You’re beautiful, you know that?”
She blushes.
“Your skin, the way it flushes this soft pink whenever I call you Peaches or give you a compliment. That’s sexy as hell, Em. I’m breaking my Friday rule again, but it’s because I could spend a million Fridays with you and never come up short with something to say about all the ways you make me want to know you better.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I want to know all the other things that make you blush.”
Her face is positively red.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” I say. I bring my hand to the edge of her shirt and slip my fingers inside. Her eyelids flutter and she closes her eyes for a fraction of a second. I continue making small circles on her skin and move my fingers over toward her belly button. Her stomach feels flat and perfect under my touch. I continue exploring it, not caring that we’re standing in the middle of a midway, in front of anyone who wants to see.
Right when I reach the raised scar, her hand slams down on top of mine and stops it in its tracks. “Don’t,” she says quickly, squirming away from me. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what? It’s okay.” I’m not sure why she’s being so secretive. I know what her shirt is hiding.
She turns away. “Sorry. I’m touchy about it.”
“I can see that. Try not to be, okay? We don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to, but if you do, I’m here.”
“I can’t.”
“Okay,” I tell her. “That’s fine. Just promise me you’re not going to run.”
I mean it. I hope she doesn’t run. If she does, I may have to chase her because whether I like it or not, I can feel her stealing my heart, piece by tiny piece.
Emma
Tristan’s bluntness, his closeness, makes me uneasy. I hate myself for wanting him. Wanting someone is what got me in trouble in the first place, but I can’t help it. I’m drawn to him as if he’s the gravity that keeps my feet stuck to the ground. I hold the teddy bear he won for me protectively in front of my belly while Tristan’s voice strains behind me.
“Em,” he says. “You all right?”
I summon the courage to look at him again and plant a smile on my face. “Yeah,” I lie. “I’m okay. It’s just . . .” I pause. “I . . . ”
“Shhhh,” he says. “No explanation. I was being a jerk and moving too fast. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong.” It’s true. I liked what he was doing. I liked the tingles he was sending all the way to the tips of my toes with a simple touch, but I didn’t like the thought of explaining myself.
That’s when Tristan steps forward so he’s facing me and shoots me one of those smiles that reach all the way to his eyes. “Hey, how do you feel about Ferris wheels?”
“That depends. Are you planning on staying in your seat or replicating Noah’s moves from The Notebook?”
“I dunno. Did Noah’s moves impress you?”
“No,” I say, “not really.”
“Then I’ll stay in my seat. You have my word.”
“In that case, Tristan, I love Ferris wheels.”
He slings his arm around my shoulder the same way Mateo had done to Marley earlier. “Perfect.”
The line to get on the Ferris wheel is longer than I thought it would be. I mean, it’s a Ferris wheel, not a thrill coaster, but I bet we will be standing here for at least twenty minutes.
Tristan leans casually against the barrier that forms the line while I run my fingers along Genesis’s fur.
“Katie would never go on one of these things with me,” he says.
My fingers freeze. Katie, who Tristan can’t talk about, wouldn’t ride on Ferris wheels. He’s trusting me with something, offering a piece of himself, so I say, “Oh, was she afraid of heights?”
He shakes his head. “Naw, she loved heights. She didn’t love the idea that a fair would come to town, set up, and leave, just like that. She was sure nothing would ever be secure enough when it was assembled by some underpaid carnival worker, so she refused to go on rides.” He looks momentarily stunned, like he hadn’t meant to say that out loud.
“People are scary.”
We shuffle forward.
He blinks. “People aren’t scary, Em.”
“Was Katie your girlfriend? You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” I add quickly. If anyone knows how some things are better left unsaid, it’s me.
He seems to think for a minute before answering. “Yeah,” he finally says. “She was.”
I don’t need to ask him if Katie died. I know she did. I remember her mother from the parking lot of the coffee shop. I look at him, right in the depths of those incredible blue eyes. “I’m sorry, Tristan. For your loss.”
He looks at the ground and we shuffle forward again. When he looks back up at me, his eyes are glossed over and I worry that I hit a nerve with my condolences. “Thanks.”
“I lost my grandmother,” I offer. I hope by telling him this, he will realize I didn’t mean to make him feel uncomfortable. “Anyway, I know it’s not the same, but if you want to talk about it, I will be here to listen.” I echo his earlier sentiment.
Before I realize it, we’re at the front. He hands the carny our tickets and we get on a seat. The handlebar doubles as a seat belt and the car swings once we are locked into place. I hold the teddy bear on my lap and move closer to Tristan so my hip is touching his.
“Katie, she uh, had some problems,” he says.
I nod, fearing that I might say the wrong thing and ruin whatever kind of sense he has right now that it’s okay to talk about things. I don’t need to know about Katie. I have secrets of my own, but I’m not going to shut him down if he feels like he needs to talk about her either.
“What kind of problems?”
“When we first got together, you know, I thought it was cute. Like she was super quirky and this awesome girl that liked to eat dessert first and read comic books while she sat on rooftops of buildings so she could feel invincible, you know?”
I smile. “I can’t say I’ve ever done either, but yeah, I get what you’re saying. It sounds like she was charming.”
“Yeah, she was.” He pauses. “Anyway, we were away at school, and I don’t know if it was something about our relationship or if it was the pressure of doing well in school or whatever, but something inside her snapped and she started exhibiting a lot of risky behavior. Like instead of sitting on a rooftop and reading, she’d walk along the edge of the rooftop and wonder what it would be like to fly, crazy shit like that.”
“That must have been scary.”
“Scary as hell,” he says. “She stopped eating, dropped a ton of weight, started crying all the time, and I tried to stop her. I begged her to talk to me, begged her to talk to anyone; I tried to get her help. I wanted to help her. God, Emma, I loved her so much.” His voice catches and when it does, the pit of my stomach knots up inside. I have a horrible feeling about what’s going to happen next in the story.
He squeezes the bridge of his nose. “I could usually talk her down, you know—I could make her see how erratic she was acting, calm her. I’d take her home, run her a bath, and get her to go to bed. I’d promise her things would be better in the morning.”
The cart jerks a bit as we continue our journey to the top. “Were they? Better in the morning.”
“No. She went from bad to worse. She’d spent hours trying to convince me of these insane theories she had. Paranoia consumed her. She was sure people were after her, trying to kill her.”
“Schizophrenic?”
He nods. “I think so.”
“Did she get help?”
He shakes his head. “I tried to help her, Em. Tried to convince her that it was in her head. I called her parents; they were in the process of contacting qualified psychiatrists in Boston for her to talk to. They were even considering moving her back home but they wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, a chance to get better. I promised I’d look after her. One night, after a particularly bad episode, I put her to bed, sat in the chair next to her, and watched her sleep. Even then she was never settled, tossing and turning and wrestling with the fucking demons that stole her beautiful mind.”
The Enchantment of Emma Fletcher Page 13
