Downcast

by Cait Reynolds

  In the classroom, Rob was sitting in the seat next to mine.

  His face lit up in a smile when he saw me. I blinked hard, trying to reconcile the fact that this was the second day in a row that Rob Furlong had started by smiling at me, and I couldn't help but smile in return.

  "Hey, Stephanie," he said. "Crazy morning, right?"

  "Yeah, what's going on with the cold?" I asked, trying not to read anything into the fact that he was actually talking to me.

  "Boiler's broken is what I heard," he answered. "Don't know why they don't send us home."

  "Think they will if it gets worse?"

  "Probably not. They don't want to use up a snow day when it's not even snowing."

  "Oh." Silence fell between us.

  "I'm so sorry about yesterday," he said softly.

  I looked up at him to find warm brown eyes riveted on me.

  "Sorry?" I echoed, confused.

  "Yeah," Rob said shyly. "Those guys in the parking lot. I should have been there to stop them."

  "Oh!" Well, hell, what to say to that? "That's really sweet of you, but I'm glad you weren't...I wouldn't want you getting your arm hurt even more."

  He grimaced. "If my arm had been okay, I would have beat their asses into the ground for what they said."

  I couldn't help the warm fuzzies that fluttered inside me, though I was more surprised than anything.

  "Um, that's really kind of you to say," I replied awkwardly. "But seriously, don't worry about it. It's not the first time. They've been jerks since Red Rover in first grade."

  "I remember you in first grade," he said in a sudden rush of words. "You were the quietest girl. You watched everyone with your big eyes. I was a little afraid of you."

  He paused and grinned, then added, "Still am."

  Haley walked in with Jordan hot on his heels. He saw where Rob was sitting and gave him a glare that made me feel like the temperature in the room had dropped another ten degrees.

  "You okay?" Rob asked as Haley and Jordan got to their desks. "Warm enough?"

  "Yeah, for the moment," I said. "I'll probably be a human popsicle by lunch, though.”

  “Key question, though, what color popsicle?”

  “Red, of course. It’s the only color for popsicles and Skittles.”

  Rob laughed, and I giggled a little bit, too. It felt so good to forget about everything, just for a few seconds. Plus, I had made Rob Furlong laugh. It had only taken eleven years, one week and three days.

  "I was thinking of taking a year off after high school," Jordan said loudly as she settled into her seat next to Haley. "You know, to travel. Like, to see life and stuff. I'd like to go to Europe. Maybe we could go together, you know? See your family or whatever."

  I found myself cringing in embarrassment on her behalf, something I never thought would have been possible. She kept going, blissfully oblivious.

  "It's like, so important to get out of the routine, you know? You totally need to go see the world and like, understand what's out there before you go back to school. I'm totally serious about like, studying art in, like, Italy and stuff. I want to go see some of the statues in Greece and like, eat French food in Paris, you know?"

  By this point, I was torn between trying not to laugh and dying of shame on her behalf. Rob caught my eye and rolled his eyes, and I couldn't help but snicker a little.

  The second bell rang, and Ms. Collins came in.

  It got colder and colder in the building during first period, and I couldn't help but shiver every now and then. Rob would look over at me with a sympathetic expression. At the same time, I would feel Haley shift in his seat behind me.

  At one point, after I'd been blowing on my hands, Rob reached over and dropped his gloves on my desk, offering up a crooked smile. I could have sworn I heard a growl behind me, and I slowly turned my head, just enough so I could glance back over my shoulder and see Haley's hand on his desk. It was white and still, with him long fingers resting against the laminate surface. I drew in a quick breath when his fingers flexed slightly, and a spider web of cracks bloomed across the surface of the desk.

  I jerked around to face front, my heart pounding so hard, I could see it pulsing in my eyes. What the hell was that? What did Haley just do? For the sake of my sanity, I forced myself to push back all my frantic questions. Breaking down in hysterics in class, pointing at Haley, and demanding answers wouldn't get me anywhere. Maybe by lunch I’d be calm enough to confront him.

  When the bell rang, I bolted into the hall and was surprised to find Rob easily and purposefully catching up to me. He put his good arm around my shoulders and chafed his hand against my upper arm as if to try and warm me up.

  "You're white as a ghost," he said, pulling me close into his side as we walked down the hall to Poetry. "You okay?"

  "Just really, really cold," I said. It was mostly the truth, just not all of it.

  He nodded and pulled us to a stop in the middle of the hall. Dropping his bag to the floor, he shrugged off his jacket and using his one good arm, he draped it around my shoulders.

  "Oh, hey, no!" I protested. "I can't take your coat. It's way too cold for you not to have it."

  "I'll take it back at the end of Poetry," he said, sounding pleased with his reasonable compromise that I could hardly refuse. "I'm plenty warm right now, and you need it more than I do."

  "Thank you," I said in a small, confused voice, looking up at him. He smiled down at me, and for one wild instant, I thought he was going to kiss me. Rob Furlong, former quarterback and junior year crush, definitely looked like he had kissing on his mind.

  A grating squeak broke the moment, and I matched grating squeak for grating squeak as a giant, fat rat ran over Rob’s sneakers. He stumbled back and would have hit the ground hard if I hadn’t caught him by the shirtfront and slowed his fall. As it was, we still ended up in a pile on the floor…a floor where there was a big rat still at large. I jumped up and helped Rob to his feet. He looked pallid and sweaty from the pain, and I let him lean on me as we walked into Poetry.

  Everybody was already in their seats, and we slid into ours just as the bell rang and Mr. Brown walked in.

  Mr. Brown started writing notes on the whiteboard, and I was focusing on calming my breathing when Rob leaned over, and quick as a blink, kissed me on the cheek and whispered, “Thank you.”

  Stunned and bewildered, I looked at him, and he grinned sheepishly at me.

  I heard a strange snap behind me, and Jordan's voice exclaim, "Oooh, Haley! You've got ink all over your hands."

  Mr. Brown turned around. I heard a desk scrape against the floor, and without warning, Haley was beside me, grabbing me by the arm and yanking me out of my chair.

  "Hey!" Rob exclaimed angrily, struggling to his feet.

  "Mr. Smith!" Mr. Brown cried. "Sit down!"

  "Haley!" Jordan called desperately.

  "What are you doing?" I hissed, but it was too late as Haley dragged me from the classroom and out of the building, his ink-stained hands leaving their indelible marks on me.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  HE PULLED ME ALONG until we were outside, crossing the athletic fields toward the woods that ringed the school property. The cold bit my cheeks, and the wind stung my eyes.

  The ground was somewhere between frozen and squashy, and my new sneakers were definitely getting broken in. I was wearing one of my new mini-skirts, and my tights were getting soaked with icy mud.

  Finally, we reached the shelter of the woods, and Haley spun me around so I was against his body and his arms around my waist. I felt once again how solid he was, despite being so lanky. He was like a sculpture of steel.

  His eyes were black fire and bore into mine. I shrank back against his embrace as I looked up into his livid expression. Beautiful menace. Once again, I was struck by the paradox of how lovely and tempting his danger seemed.

  "Haley," I said breathlessly. "What are you doing?"

  I felt something like a growl rumble in his
chest. He caught my chin with one hand.

  "You are mine," he whispered. "Don't ever forget it. I belong to you. You belong to me."

  The wind was picking up, but it wasn't the cold alone that made me shiver.

  "It's meant to be, Stephanie. I want to be in your world."

  It took me a second to process the words. It was such a strange way of saying things.

  "You don't belong in my world," I said between my chattering teeth. It hurt to say those words. He didn't belong with geeky, dorky me. He belonged to...well, not to stupid Jordan either. He belonged to a bigger existence than Darbyfield.

  "Then be part of mine," he challenged back. I looked up into his face. Intensity burned in his eyes, and I wanted to burn with it, so badly.

  "That'll never happen," I whispered, blinking back tears that sprung to my eyes. "Not in a million years."

  "I've waited longer than that," Haley murmured. "What's another million if I could be sure I'd have you? But I'm not sure. I won't be sure until you say yes."

  He released my waist, but slid his hands up until he had one hand cradling my neck and the other cupping my cheek. I existed only in heartbeats.

  And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming...

  I heard the words in my head as I stood still and breathless, trapped by his bottomless gaze and freezing touch. My eyes seemed to be flaring up because suddenly, I could see the cold. I could see its burning icy waves in the air. I could see the utter black of Haley's eyes and the way they spilled into a black universe. I could see edges of darkness and the rotting of trees.

  The cold grew sharper, the wind beginning to whistle and shake the trees, its invisible fingers searching through my clothes to touch my skin. The cold combed shivering threads of silver through my veins.

  "You frighten me," I whispered, swallowing hard as the wind whipped up the dry, dead leaves and stirred Haley's black hair and my own.

  The wind died, and I dizzily took a step back, then another. And another.

  Haley stood still, his eyes riveted to me and only the slight rise and fall of his chest revealing him to be flesh and blood, and not ice and steel.

  "I am frightening," he said finally, his voice deep and hypnotic, though I heard the precision of rage in his consonants. "All who know me fear me. Yet, am I not the most just? In my passion, am I not constant, chasing the one star that has eluded me for far too long?"

  "Yes," he continued, dark flames burning bright in his eyes as he took a step toward me. "I am a terrible creature. I will not yield. I will fight for what I want. A man fights for what he wants."

  I stared at him, the fawn caught in the gaze of the panther. In that moment though, fear seemed a flimsy emotion. There was so much more here. There was something elemental and exciting in this fraction of existence, the seconds lengthening and drawing it into a time of its own, away from buildings and blackboards, lockers and lunch.

  He came toward me, and it was my turn to stand my ground. I vibrated with nervous energy as he came near. Touch me, don't touch me, touch me, don't touch me.

  I had barely taken a breath when Haley was before me, folding me so very gently into his arms.

  "I am sorry for this morning," he whispered, his lips brushing my ear and causing my mind to blank completely for a moment. "I am sorry for frightening you yesterday with the violence within me. I am sorry for all the times I have made you uncomfortable. But, you must know, I am frightened as well. I am terrified I may not be able to find you again."

  "What do you mean?" I breathed.

  "I never meant to frighten you," he sighed into my hair. "I just need you to understand me. I need it so badly that it hurts."

  “I want to understand you, just as badly,” I pointed out. “But, I never get any answers.”

  “I know. I know, and I hate that you are confused and scared. I hate that this makes you run away from me.”

  His arms tightened around me to the point where I was effortlessly lifted to my toes. He lowered his head so that his lips almost brushed mine as he spoke, "I'm tired of chasing you. I want to catch you, Stephanie Starr."

  Something stirred deep inside me, a yearning so intense that it engulfed every emotion, every sensation, every thought. It would be so easy to say yes, to take shelter in his arms, to let myself be adored by him, to let my dark fantasies play out.

  "Not yet." I didn't recognize my own breathless voice at first.

  "Why?" he ground out, his jaw tensed and eyes full of agony.

  "You will always frighten me until I know what's going on," I replied miserably, struggling out of his grip. "There's too much I don't understand about you. About Zack. I'm not really into conspiracy theories and paranormal—that's Morris' department—but, I can't just ignore what I've seen with my own eyes!"

  "What have you seen?" His voice was deadly quiet.

  "Disintegrating the locker?" I retorted. "The fight yesterday? The desk this morning? Even Zack told me you could be violent. You're always on edge around me, and that puts me on edge around you. I'm scared of what you might do if I say no, and I'm scared of what you might do if I say yes."

  Haley had gone chalk white, and his black eyes were wild. His lips were slightly parted, but he barely seemed to be breathing. He closed the distance between us, and I could have sworn that somehow, he was just an inch or two taller, towering over me. In half a heartbeat, he had one arm locked around my waist, holding me inexorably against his steely frame, and his other hand cradled my cheek with a gentleness that was as frightening as it was incongruous.

  "Do you need to be protected from me?" he whispered, brushing his thumb over my bottom lip.

  “I don’t know, do I?”

  "I think you need to be protected from yourself."

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You are extremely dangerous, in more ways than one.”

  "I am not!" I exclaimed.

  "Yes, you are," he said and lowered his lips to mine.

  I was drowning in ice. A bone-chilling cold flooded into my body, freezing my anger and forcing me to offer up all the heat I possessed.

  Nothing could have been better, more complete, more right, than his kiss. It lasted no more than three heartbeats, but tendrils of him had crawled into me, and me into him, twining our untouchable beings together, half and half into a whole, finally and forever.

  My eyes fluttered open as he broke the kiss, and for the first time, I knew my eyes pulled at his soul as much as his had done with mine. I saw him swallow hard and felt him draw in a deep breath.

  "We should get back," I blurted out, and my heart skipped unevenly as he grinned slowly at me, a seductive, triumphant, radiantly happy grin.

  "If you insist, princess," he murmured, ducking in for another kiss, wrapping his body around mine, and mine around his.

  “Can you give me any answers now?” I said, my words forming kisses against his lips. Yup, that was me, like a dog with a bone. Able to single-handedly ruin a perfect moment because I couldn’t let things go.

  With a low groan, he raised his lips from mine, leaning his forehead against mine.

  "I...not yet," he gasped, his breathing sharp and dry. "Damn it, not yet!"

  “What ‘not yet?’” I asked.

  “I can’t tell you,” he answered, his face a mask of frustration.

  "Why not?"

  His eyes glittered and jaw tensed, as if he was struggling to say something. He finally sighed.

  "I can't," he replied, sounding bitter but resigned as he gently traced my jaw with his fingers. "But, if you are patient and will trust me, I can help you figure it out. We need to be quick about it, though."

  "Why?"

  "Because Morris Chow is absolutely right."

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  "WHAT?" I SHRIEKED. "How do you know that? Wait, how do you know about Morris and the weather thing?"

  "I was in the library that day you and he were talking," Haley said mildly, tangling his finger
s in my short hair and gently bringing my face close to his. "I heard everything."

  "I’ve never seen you in the library before. What were you doing in the library?"

  "First the grocery store, now the library. I’m just a humble mortal with a European paper history due, too."

  I wasn't so far gone in the moment that I couldn't give him my best side-eye. He laughed and kissed me again.

  Once more, I was lost to the sensation of crystalline fractals racing over my skin. My body responded with a love-fed warmth that made my fingers and lips hot to the touch.

  I felt Haley shudder and clutch me closer to him, as if he were desperate for my touch. He rained kisses like drops of sleet onto my eyelids, forehead, cheek, and neck. Each kiss stole the hot breath out of my lungs.

  A blast of icy wind stirred the dead leaves into a crackling twister around our ankles, and I shivered, huddling closer to him, memorizing the feel of every muscle and bone beneath his skin.

  ***

  My world both expanded and shrank to be nothing more than grey trees, thick fog, and brown, dead leaves. And Haley.

  I listened to the sound of his breathing, noticing a thousand little things about him like the way the collar of his shirt brushed the skin of his neck and the hint of stubble on his jaw. Time measured itself in heartbeats and breaths, and I reveled in the new sensation of being loved.

  The distant sound of the bell shook my bliss, and questions began to bubble up to the surface again. Apparently, Haley could be selectively deaf, as he didn’t seem to hear or care about the bell. He just continued kissing me and holding me in a silence full of meaning.

  The second bell rang, though it sounded miles away to my kiss-addled brain.

  "Hang on," I gasped, pulling back from his kiss. "Stop!"

  He made a small sound of annoyance but complied, and when I looked up at him, I saw that he was smiling like there was not a thing wrong in his world.

  "We need to talk about Morris," I said.

  "I can't think of anything I want to talk about less at this moment," Haley chuckled. I knew I had, at most, three seconds before he started kissing me again and making me forget about everything else.