by B. F. Simone
“What?” Katie looked through the worksheet. It was a questionnaire with questions like: What is your partner’s favorite food? What is your partner’s favorite weapon type? What challenge do you set for your partner?
The final bell rang and Katie looked around for Tristan and saw the door Mr. Carver pointed at, cracked open.
“Hello Partner,” she said, walking into the room and closing the door behind her. The room was bigger than she expected. And quiet except for a slight hum from the florescent light. Tristan sat on the floor with his legs crossed and flipped through the worksheet. He looked like boy. A regular boy.
He looked at her.
“Stop doing that,” she said, blushing.
“Doing what?” He went back to the worksheet.
“Are you ever going to tell me why you can read my mind?”
Tristan sighed and stared at the worksheet. “What’s your favorite color?”
“You’re just going to ignore my question?”
“How about saddest memory?”
“Why are you like this?”
“My favorite color is yellow. No, maybe red. Write down both.”
Katie stared at him.
“Are you going to write that down?” he said.
Katie sat down and pulled a pen out of her book-bag. “If I write it down will you answer my questions?”
“Sure. As long as they’re on that worksheet.” His blue eyes mocked her. And a smile creeped across his face when she thought how nice they were—or could have been if he wasn’t annoying.
They spent the rest of class filling out the worksheet. Tristan gave Katie a challenge of studying harder and she wrote that he should be honest and straight forward; especially after his saddest memory was when he found out titanic was one of the top grossing movies ever.
Katie laid on the floor and stared at the ceiling. She had two more periods to go and she was already exhausted.
“It’s because you don’t fuel your body correctly.” Tristan stood up.
“Blah, Blah, I know, ‘food pyramid, protein, exercise’ and all that crap they feed you in elementary school about health.” She yawned and stretched.
Tristan stood over her and cast a shadow over her body. His gaze made her aware of how much she didn’t know about him. “Are you really half-vampire?”
“Yes.” He grimaced.
An honest answer. “Your parents?”
“Murdered.”
Any other questions she had stopped in her throat. “S-Sorry.”
He offered her a hand and she hesitated before she took it. He pulled her up with ease and she almost lost her balance. His grip steadied her. It was firm, yet violently electric. Her body was betraying her, urging her to know something and he knew it. She could see it in his eyes—they too were urging her to know something. It wasn’t anger she’d seen in his eyes, it was a type of desperation.
She pulled her hand away and cleared her throat. There was a split second where she wondered if she imagined it all—the way he looked into her—but his stiffness told the truth.
Who are you?
He left her in the room with no inclination of whether he heard her or not and ignored her for the rest of the day—which must have been an art he perfected given they where default partners for everything they did in the Practical Application class (which turned out to be gym on steroids). Their teacher, or “Sensei Steve” as he called himself, didn’t care that she hadn’t had a Karate class for at least four years. He judged her like she was training for the Olympics. When she fell while stretching, he told her he hoped she’d be better in Judo tomorrow. She’d never even seen Judo.
Not surprising Tristan knew what he was doing. Everything he did was effortless, including ignoring her. This time it bothered her. The way he looked at her earlier was tattooed in the back of her head. It was almost helpless.
Hopeless.
The more she thought about it the more vacant he became. Which didn’t help when they broke off into pairs to work on the same kick they’d done all class.
By the time the last bell rang Katie was ready to change back into her clothes and go home. Until, Tristan spoke for the first time in over an hour.
“We have Activities everyday except Friday. It’s Monday.” He said, pointing at a schedule on the gym wall. “Just pick one. I don’t care what it is.”
“You want me to pick yours too?” Katie said. Even though he’d ignored her he still wanted to be tied to her hip?
He gave her a long side glance and then looked back at the top of the poster:
Activities Must Be Done With Partners!
“Oh.” Katie said, feeling stupid. “Okay, swimming then,” she said, wanting a nice dip in the pool.
“No.”
“But you said—”
“And now I’m saying pick something else.” Tristan looked at the list. “Track. You need to run more.”
Katie cursed. “I’m not running.”
“It’s either running or “Sensei Steve.” He’s teaching everything else. I’m sure he’d love another hour with his favorite student.”
“I picked swimming.”
“And I unpicked it. Besides I have nothing to swim in,” he picked up his bag.
Katie leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. She hated running. Running was the fastest way to set fire to her lungs. She sucked in a deep breath. “Fine.” She exhaled. At least he wasn’t ignoring her now and she’d be running with someone. She grabbed her bag and almost lost her balance when she saw his face. It was there again until he blinked it away. Why was he looking at her like that? Like she’d burned down his house and made him watch.
“I know you can hear me—but I didn’t—”
“I’ll teach you how to breathe,” Tristan said, slinging his bag onto his shoulder. He shoved a hand in his pocket.
“Wh—What?”
“It helps when you run, so your lungs don’t burn.”
“Oh, okay—are we just going to ignore the awkwardness?” Katie said, following Tristan out of the gym.
He looked at her thoughtfully. “I am.”
CHAPTER SIX
They ran for fifty-minutes straight. Or rather, Tristan jogged next to Katie as she limped and wheezed for forty-five minutes. She bent over in the most severe pain of her life. Tristan’s breathing exercise didn’t help. Not in the least.
“Well,” Tristan said, looking under-worked, “You don’t have to like it, but you do have to get in shape. Maybe you should cut the snacks and drink more water.”
“Wow. You must be a popular with the ladies.”
“I’m just telling you the truth,” he said, matching his pace with her slow one. They were headed back to the gym to change.
“Now you’re Mr. Honest?” Katie laughed. “Just when I’m about to go home. It’s a shame really.”
“What do you mean home? We still have to train with Lucinda. Katalina, do you read anything? You should have gotten a schedule in that stack of papers they gave you.”
There it was again, her full name. “What do you mean train? What did I just do?” She didn’t have an ounce of energy left to “train”.
“You just did, ‘school’. Now you do work.”
What did training entail? She wasn’t prepared for this. All she did today was stack up homework and run her body into the ground. Now she was expected to train?
“I don’t know,” Katie said. Again, her life was moving faster than she could hold on. Training meant it was real, all of it. After seeing Tristan stabbed, she never wanted to see anything like that again. That was what she was training for wasn’t it? To intentionally hurt someone. Or worse, to be stabbed by someone and live through the pain…or die.
“It’s not hard when it’s for someone you care about.” Tristan followed her eyes to his chest.
Her insides froze.
“That’s why most people fight. To protect the people they care about.”
Katie cringed what did she th
ink he meant? Did he know? Awkward…
“I’ll tell Lucinda you’ll start after-school training tomorrow,” Tristan said, turning his back on her.
“Oh, yeah. Thanks.”
Tristan started to walk away and Katie felt abandoned. She was exhausted, mentally and physically, and alone. The anxiety clawed its way up again, faster now that she had no way to fight against it. What was she supposed to do? Go home? Tell her dad? Pretend this wasn’t her life.
Her breathing quickened and she tried to blink back tears. This was it. Her life was over and she was all of a sudden expected to know all these new things. She was alone. Alone and confused and—she was spinning, spinning, spinning….
“One, two, deep. One, two, deep. Like we practiced earlier. Come on, Katalina. It’s not that bad. One, two, deep.”
One, two, deep. One, two, deep. She repeated it over and over, or at least she thought she did. She heard it like a mantra. There was a tight feeling across her chest to the rhythm of her breathing and the constriction felt good. She didn’t want to open her eyes because she knew he was holding her. If she opened her eyes she’d cry harder—if she opened her eyes, he’d see the dark parts of her soul that she didn’t even want to see.
“You’re having a panic attack. Just breathe and it’ll pass,” Tristan said as he moved her into the shade. She was mortified and so she cried harder. It was finally coming out. All the shattered pieces of her life. All day she’d tried to hold them together, but they’d slip out of her hands and spill. She’d pick them up and it’d be okay, but now—she was too tired.
What the hell was happening to her. She couldn’t explain any of it: Glock, the guardians, the mother she never had, Tristan hearing her thoughts. Nothing made sense anymore.
It was a while before she stopped crying. Every time she was close to stopping she’d remembering Tristan was there holding her and the embarrassment would send her body racking. She buried her face into his chest because she hated crying in front of people and it was the only way to keep him from seeing her face. Worse, his shirt was wet with her tears, and probably her snot, and she needed to blow her nose badly.
He moved his arm around, unzipping the bag that was on his shoulder. The bag dropped to the floor. “Here,” he said quietly.
Without looking she moved her hand out slowly and he put what felt like a towel in it. A part of her didn’t want to move from his chest. Being that close to someone no matter how mortifying it was comforted her. Nevertheless, she cursed her thoughts and transferred her wrecked face from his chest to the towel.
She expected him to move away. Or drop his hand from her back, but it stayed. “You can blow your nose in that if you want,” he said.
She tried to blow quietly at first but realized how stupid that was.
“Sorry,” she said between breaths.
“We’re partners,” he said. “If you can’t lean on me then who can you lean on?”
Katie wanted badly to see if there was a mocking smile on his face or not. The thought of him making fun of her brought on more tears.
“Katalina, really I’m not. I was—I was being serious. Christ, you think I’m a monster.”
She laughed in between a sob, because she did. She’d been painting him all day as her personal terrorist. How could she not? He just showed up on her front porch. Bleed out on her lawn. Shattered everything that was normal in her life. And worst, invaded her mind.
He stiffened. She felt him add space between them and realized quickly that though he had come into her life like a tornado, at this very moment he was the only thing holding her together. She didn’t dare ask him to move closer. She tried not to think it.
He didn’t.
She needed to say something, apologize for what she’d thought, but she couldn’t bring herself to open her mouth. She was a coward.
“I’ll walk you home,” Tristan said after a few moments. His voice was tight. Katie had managed to make an already humiliating situation worse.
She nodded and wiped her face. She handed him the soiled towel without looking at him.
“Maybe you can keep it,” he said, pretending to be busy looking through his bag.
“Sorry,” was all Katie could muster.
He didn’t reply.
They walked to her neighborhood in silence, and like last time he stopped on her street corner. They barely waved before parting. Katie felt like she should have said something—thanked him or apologized. But she couldn’t. She let him walk away without uttering a single word. It didn’t count if he could hear it in her mind.
Her dad wasn’t home yet to her relief. She took a shower and laid on her bed with the intention of taking a quick nap before dinner, but didn’t wake up until ten-minutes before she was supposed to leave for school the next morning. She half-walked, half-jogged, to the front of her neighborhood. Allison was already there staring at her phone.
As Katie walked toward her the only thought on her mind was if Tristan would walk to school with them. It wasn’t something she expected, but she couldn’t lie to herself.
“Hey, Kay,” Allison mumbled without looking up from her phone. “Are you kidding me?”
Katie waited for the news.
“He’s not coming to Preliminaries? God, what a dick.” Allison squeezed her phone in her hand, her knuckles turning white.
“What?”
“My dad, he’s not coming to Preliminaries. All parents go to the Preliminaries, how embarrassing.”
“Allison I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Allison shot her a look so violent it made Katie rock back. Whatever it was, Allison didn’t want to talk about it.
Allison paced. “If Brian doesn’t hurry up we’re leaving without him. I do not have the patience for his crap today.”
Katie didn’t respond. This wasn’t new to her, sometimes Allison got into moods where saying anything was the wrong thing. Allison buzzed around like an aggravated wasp. Every second that ticked by only made her more aggravated.
Finally, Brian appeared around the corner, but looking just as grim as she felt. When he saw Katie, his eyebrows raised in the direction of Allison. Katie shrugged and tried to ignore the disappointment when it looked like Tristan wouldn’t be there after all.
“So how was your first day?” Brian said, unbuttoning his shirt a little so it showed is undershirt. Allison marched off in the direction of school leaving them to follow.
“It was,” all she could think about was her panic attack and way Tristan smelled warm. “Interesting.”
Brian smiled obviously unaware of her thoughts. He nodded in the direction of Allison. “So, what crawled up her ass?”
It didn’t matter that Brian had outwardly said things like that about Allison for three years, it always bother Katie. “Nothing,” Katie said, disapprovingly.
“Okay, okay. What’s wrong with her?” Brian rolled his eyes.
“Her dad isn’t going to Preliminaries? What is that?” Katie said.
“Seriously? It’s really not that big of a deal. Preliminaries is like our Sports Day. We compete for our places in the finals at the end of the year. It’s not really that serious. But go figure, Allison is pretty uptight about most things.”
“Are you doing it?” Katie asked. She caught herself looking over her shoulder. She still expected him to be there following them.
“We all have to. It’s not really voluntary.”
“What? When is it?” Her heart skipped a few beats. She’d have to compete. Compete.
“This Saturday. There are posters in the Field Study room.” Brian patted her on the back and assured her it wasn’t anything serious. That didn’t help. He didn’t take anything seriously.
“Easy for you to say. You’ve been doing this for as long as everyone else. You’re good at it, I can barely run for five minutes.”
Brian laughed, but it was forced.
When they finally made it to school, Katie hardly recognized it. Before, it w
as a place she knew the ins-and-outs of. She had a sleeping spot in the library, she had a lunch table and people she knew. She had a life here. Now it was a foreign place out to kill her with homework and exercise. Worse, they all expected her to just know things. It was a fluke she’d found out she’d be competing at the end of the week. And competing how?
She felt alone. Even her friends weren’t much help. These things were normal to them. They didn’t get it. Allison hadn’t even spoken to her since she flipped out. It wasn’t Katie’s fault Allison’s dad didn’t want to go to some stupid sports day. If anything Katie had bigger problems. She still hadn’t spoken more than three words to her dad in the last two days. How was she going to tell him, or bring it up. Where would she start?
As she walked to their English classroom, she realized Brian was talking to her. “My mom still won’t let off, she follows me around the house like I’m a criminal. I’m going to have to sneak out if I want to go out tonight.”
“Out?”
“—A movie.”
It was a lie. Why did Brian always think he could lie to her? “Movie? What movie?” Katie asked, maneuvering through a sea of white and navy-blue. Why was it so crowed today?
Brian looked guilty. “Nothing good. Just going to go see something with a few friends.”
Ouch. I guess I’m not invited. “Cool.”
“Are you in a hurry or something? You’re literally almost out of breath.”
Katie stopped in the middle of the hall. He was right. She could hardly breathe and her calves were burning. Her purpose had been to go straight to the classroom, not their usual hangout spot by the staircase. She wanted to see if he was there. She couldn’t even think his name.
“I think I’m still a little freaked out from yesterday,” she blurted. She needed to tell someone about what happened. But she couldn’t could she? It would sound stupid.
“You’ll get used to things.” Brian looked around the hall bored. “You mind if we go over there?” Brian was pointing to a group of people by the science hallway next to the trophy display. Right under the biggest trophy stood the biggest headache. Christi Taylor.
