The Other Side of Envy: The Ghost Bird Series: #8 (The Academy)

by C. L. Stone

  I moved toward his car, and this time, his palm touched my lower back, warming a spot on my spine.

  He knew I wasn’t upset with him, or he’d forgiven me for declining his request to talk to my stepmother. Either way, I felt I saved that bit of...whatever it was we had together.

  I’d do whatever was necessary to keep it.

  THE HOUSE OF COLEMAN

  Mr. Blackbourne drove for almost twenty minutes along the interstate, heading out of Charleston. Traffic was heavy. Mr. Blackbourne remained quiet the entire trip.

  I couldn’t blame him. My mind went over our conversation, and I sought out the words to express to him how I felt. Wasn’t it okay to let the past remain in the past? Wasn’t it more important to work on us now? He’d said we had a month to convince the Academy I should join with their team. That seemed much more important than digging up things that no longer mattered. If he was seeking out the past for what he thought was my benefit, I needed to find a way to let him know it was unnecessary.

  I let it go. I couldn’t imagine talking about it now. I needed space. I focused on Gabriel, and tried to think up ways to convince him that I should join the Academy.

  I breathed in the stronger scent of spring soap within the BMW. Try as I might, I wanted to be able to relax around Mr. Blackbourne and have a light conversation, but I couldn’t find the nerve or the right words to say.

  Mr. Blackbourne took an exit and the signs all read North Charleston. The streets had potholes and faded white and yellow lines. We crossed over two sets of train tracks, past dilapidated homes with sunken in front porches and broken fences. He turned into a trailer park, driving slowly through the neighborhood.

  The trailer park rested alongside another set of tracks running counter to the main road. I wondered if it was still active. Could people live so close to trains like that? Maybe it wasn’t active any more.

  We pulled into a gravel parking space next to a trailer near the back of the park. The trailer was painted a faint yellow, with white trim. There was a dull gray shed built next to it. The yard was clean, compared to the neighbors’ to the left. Their yard was littered with broken tricycles, a dingy swing set and fast food containers. Comparatively, the trailer we were at wasn’t the newest in the neighborhood, but it appeared to be the cleanest and most well maintained.

  Mr. Blackbourne got out of the car, moving around quickly to open my door. He reached in to assist me. I stepped out, getting that nervous tremor through me as I gazed around. “Where are we?” I asked.

  “This is Mr. Coleman’s home.”

  Mr. Coleman. Gabriel lived here? It wasn’t quite what I was imagining. I remembered Victor’s house in downtown Charleston and how big it was, and I almost expected Gabriel to have a similar house.

  Mr. Blackbourne went to his trunk, and pulled out my own small book bag. “I got this from Silas’s car before I picked you up,” he said.

  He knew I wasn’t going to return with Silas before our conversation. I started to reach out for the book bag, but he carried it and ushered me forward.

  I walked, although slowly. I glanced around the neighborhood, feeling eyes on the two of us. I couldn’t see anyone for sure, but in a neighborhood this small, and with walls so thin, I thought they all could see and hear anything we said or did. My hands clenched into fists, keeping me steady.

  Mr. Blackbourne led the way up to a wood deck, opened up a screen door, and knocked on the yellow wood one behind it. As we waited, I stepped close to Mr. Blackbourne, my arm brushing his as I pushed my lip to my lower teeth. New territory. I needed someone familiar.

  When no one answered after a couple of minutes, Mr. Blackbourne knocked again. While it didn’t appear he was knocking that hard, it was hard enough that the deck shook at our feet.

  “Coming!” Gabriel’s voice rang out to us. A second later, there was the sound of several locks being undone. Gabriel materialized in the doorway. He wore a blue ribbed tank shirt and a pair of faded gray boxer shorts, no studs in his ears, just the three black rings. His hair was mussed and sticking up on one side. He blinked out at us with tired eyes, registering Mr. Blackbourne first without much surprise. When Gabriel’s eyes finally settled on me, his mouth popped open. “Fuck, what the hell, dude?” He backed off, disappearing into the house.

  My mouth formed an ‘o’ shape. Gabriel openly cursed in front of Mr. Blackbourne, which was something he usually curbed at school. Would he get into trouble?

  Mr. Blackbourne pushed the door open and entered the house. I followed behind him, not wanting to be alone on the porch.

  The living room had thin beige carpet. A worn couch in a busy, multi-colored pattern was jammed up against the far wall. There was an entertainment center pressed up against bare windows on the opposite side, and it was cluttered with video games, DVDs and a few game consoles.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming over with her?” Gabriel sorted through a laundry basket that sat on a coffee table. He pulled out a pair of jeans, slipping them on quickly. He stuffed the edge of his tank shirt into the jeans as he buttoned up. He snatched up a wrinkled, short sleeve button-up shirt from the same basket. He shoved his arms through the shirt before he turned around, spotting me peeking behind Mr. Blackbourne’s shoulder. “What are you doing here? What’s wrong? Why didn’t you call?”

  “I apologize for waking you on your day off,” Mr. Blackbourne said. “I needed to get to Summerville and you were on the way.”

  “So you brought her here? What’s wrong with you?”

  Mr. Blackbourne turned to me, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Stay with Mr. Coleman. Do what he says. Call me if there are any problems.”

  I pinched my lip to my teeth, nodding, solemn. I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to do. It didn’t seem like Gabriel wanted me there. I’d been nervous in a new place but before, I’d had some warning as to where I was going. This time, I hadn’t realized and wasn’t ready for it. Worse, Gabriel was having a fit simply because I was there.

  Mr. Blackbourne walked around me, heading toward the door. I turned to watch him walk out onto the porch. He looked back at me once. The gaze he shared with me was difficult to read. The steel was back in place, but there was something else. It was almost a pained expression, sad, really.

  Had I said something wrong? Had I ruined things for good somehow? My nervous heart wouldn’t settle down to allow me to say or do anything in an attempt to fix it.

  Slowly, Mr. Blackbourne shut the door. I was alone with Gabriel. When the car started and the sound of it faded, I turned to him and waited.

  His parted lips closed tight as he raked fingers through his hair. “Well shit.”

  “Sorry,” I said quietly.

  Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Fuck it,” he said. He crossed the living room, moving around me, and headed into a small kitchen area. “You hungry?”

  I opened my mouth to answer him but couldn’t find my voice. I scanned the space. White and blue vinyl flooring from the kitchen met the carpet of the living room, cutting the open area in half. There was a short hallway beyond the kitchen and one on the other side of the house beyond the living room. It was smaller than Silas’s apartment.

  Gabriel opened up the fridge, and bent down a little to check the contents. The fridge door had a dent, and the handle was loose. He clanked it against the door as he stared inside. “Hm,” he said. He stood up with the fridge door still open, looking at a collection of boxes on top. “Do you like Lucky Charms?” he asked. He turned his head to me. “You do eat cereal, right?”

  I nodded. I wasn’t hungry, but if he was hungry, I’d join him. Why couldn’t I talk to him? Maybe it was just the new place making me feel shy. It was outside my element. I didn’t know how to behave. Didn’t he have a stepmom? Where was she?

  Gabriel smirked, taking down the cereal box and pulling a carton of milk from the fridge. He grabbed two bowls and two spoons from a drying rack in the sink and then nudged me toward the living room.

&nb
sp; I stepped out of the way. Gabriel put the contents in his arms onto the coffee table, the bowls and spoons clattering noisily. He picked up the basket of clothes and shoved it onto the couch. He sat on the floor, patting the space next to him. “Come on,” he said.

  I put my book bag on the couch, too, kneeling next to him where he wanted me, sitting back on my heels. He placed a bowl in front of me, pouring cereal into it and dropped the spoon in. He handed me the milk while he filled his own bowl.

  “So what happened?” Gabriel said as we were eating. He shoved his spoon into the cereal, staring into his bowl as he took bites. “You were over at Silas’s yesterday, right? Have fun?”

  “Yes,” I admitted, grateful he was starting a conversation I could handle. “His dad was busy working and got in late, so I didn’t get a chance to see him. It was just Silas there.”

  “What’d you do? Watch baseball all day?”

  “Some football. Baseball season is over for the year. We went into the hot tub again.”

  Gabriel coughed, pushing a hand to his chest as he choked down his cereal. “He what? And what do you mean again?”

  It was something Silas and I did occasionally when I visited now. I had brought my bathing suit at one point and now I left it at Silas’s house. “They’ve got a hot tub at the apartment complex. The one in the, um, the fitness center thing.”

  “That bastard,” Gabriel smirked. “How was it?”

  “It feels like a big bath tub. With water jets.”

  Gabriel laughed. “Shit. Well I don’t have a hot tub. We’ll have to figure out something else to do today.”

  “What were you going to do?”

  He shrugged, poking at his cereal. He combed at his hair as he did. Some of the blond locks were falling over his face, the rest of his russet hair was sticking out in ways I hadn’t seen before. He must have slept hard last night. “Hadn’t decided yet. Supposedly, I have the day off. Of course, I thought I had the day off yesterday, too.”

  “If I’d known I was coming, I’d have brought a loaded water gun,” I said, grinning.

  He laughed again, shoving his fingers through his hair again. “Maybe we’ll find one.”

  That felt more like Gabriel. Now that I wasn’t so nervous, I inhaled the air around me, taking in my surroundings. It smelled of dust and old carpet and a layer of cigarette smoke. Unlike Silas’s house where it was faint, the smoke smell here was thicker, as if someone regularly smoked and all over the place. There was also the blend of other scents, chemical and acrid and heady with rose and other fragrances as if someone had used air fresheners to try to mask the smoke.

  When I finished the cereal, Gabriel took the bowl from me, heading toward the kitchen. “What do you want to do?” he asked as he put the dishes into the sink and rinsed them.

  It felt rushed to talk about joining the Academy right after arriving. I needed to wait for an opening somewhere. “What do you like to do?”

  Gabriel came back into the living room. He shoved the coffee table over until it was almost in the kitchen. When the table was out of the way, he collapsed onto the floor, sprawled out on his back. He looked up at me from the floor, grinning and his crystal blue eyes playful. “We could play that Truth or Dare.”

  I had to smile at this and the memory of the last time we’d played it together. I rolled my eyes, holding my smirk. “Why not call it what it really is? Dare-Sang-to-brush-her-teeth-and-bite-people.”

  “Fine. Let’s play that,” he said, propping himself up on his elbows. “For starters, I dare you to get rid of that damn clip.”

  I laughed, reaching up to release the clip. I knew if I didn’t, he’d either steal it or find another way to get rid of it. There was no way to escape him in his own house. “Why didn’t you just say you wanted it?”

  When I had the clip in my hand, he sat up more to snatch it from me and shoved it into his pocket. “Well if we’re going to skip the pretense, who the hell dressed you this morning? Those jeans don’t go with that top. Didn’t I teach you anything?”

  “We kind of left in a hurry this morning. And yesterday when Silas said to go, I just grabbed what was nearby and shoved it all into my bag.” I pointed to the book bag I used for both school and overnight trips.

  Gabriel grunted, getting up on his knees and crossing to the couch where my book bag was. He opened it, pursuing the contents, yanking out the clothes I’d worn yesterday. “Shit. Okay, whoever comes to get you, I’ll go back with you and sort some of your stuff. You’re mixing the wrong things.” A pair of panties fell out onto the floor. I blushed. Gabriel scooped them up. It was a black pair with a pink heart on the butt. He grinned, wriggling his eyebrows. “I like these.”

  I hid my face behind my hands. “Gabriel,” I said in an embarrassed whine.

  “Trouble.”

  “Meanie.”

  “And what the hell did you wear last night to sleep in?”

  “Silas gave me a shirt to wear.”

  “Oh.” He stuffed everything into the bag. “What you really need is a real overnight bag. You know, something with plenty of spare clothes and duplicates of everything so you can just grab it and go.”

  “Do I need one? Am I going to have to get up and go like this a lot?”

  Gabriel laughed, digging out my hairbrush and dropping the bag on the couch again. He crawled over to sit cross-legged near me. “Shit, you’re here now, aren’t you? I know this wasn’t planned.”

  He was right. I’ve been on the move since I’d met them. It would be helpful to carry my keys and everything in a bag. Maybe a purse? It felt like an overnight bag would be better, something I could carry clothes and a few toiletries in.

  Gabriel snapped his fingers, twirling them in front of his body and waving the hairbrush. That was my cue. I scooted until I was on my butt on the floor in front of him. He grabbed me by the hips until I was close in front of his folded legs and he started brushing out my hair, combing out the tips and moving up through it. “I don’t like this brush. You need a new one.”

  “You can’t keep buying me new things,” I said, trying to keep my head still as his fingers smoothed through my hair after every brush stroke. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “I don’t like it.” He finished combing out the tangles and tossed the brush away toward the kitchen. It slid against the tile and collided with the wastebasket near the fridge.

  I leaned sideways to look at him over my shoulder. “Hey, you could have broken it.”

  “I was throwing it away.”

  “Gabriel...”

  “Pipe the fuck down. I’ll get you another one. I’ll get you two.” He leaned his back against the couch. “What do you want from me, Trouble? I say I’m going to get you something, I’ll get it. I’m not talking out my ass.”

  I sighed. It really wasn’t a matter of believing he’d get another one. I still wasn’t used to them spending money on me, and Gabriel often got the others to buy new things for me. Still, protesting was pointless. Gabriel always talked them into it. “Okay, fine.”

  He grinned, and pushed a lock of my hair around my ear. It fell back across my face. “Let’s play some video games. I’ll show you how you can beat Kota.” He picked himself up, and knee-walked across the room to the entertainment center and scanned the shelves for a couple of Xbox controllers.

  I sat back against the couch, pulling my knees up to my chest and wrapping my arms around my legs. I still couldn’t think of a way to bring up the Academy, though. It was on the tip of my tongue to start. But each time I opened my mouth to do so, my heart jumped into overdrive and I couldn’t do it.

  When he turned back, he stopped, tilting his head at me. “What?”

  I blinked at him. “Hm?”

  “Why are you sitting like that?”

  My eyes widened. What was he talking about? “It’s comfortable?”

  “Is it? The only time I see you sit like that is when you’re nervous. Stop being nervous.”

  “I’m no
t nervous,” I protested, but switched to sitting cross-legged. “Better?”

  “Almost,” he said, scooting over to sit next to me. “I should make you sit on the other side of the room so you don’t cheat.”

  “It’s too hard to cheat at video games. I still lose.”

  “Because they end up sitting on you and tossing the controller away.”

  I grinned, remembering when Kota did that. I held my hand out, and Gabriel gave me a controller.

  We started out with one of the fighting games. At first we fought against each other like we’d done before, but later he figured out how to get us on the same team. That made things a lot easier as he’d explain which buttons did what attacks. He wouldn’t tell me before when we were fighting against each other.

  I stole glances of him while he was playing. He had an angular jawline. His collar bones were attractive. He had wide shoulders, and a narrow waist. I’d overheard someone at school once call a rock star ‘grunge handsome’. I thought that described Gabriel pretty well.

  When we got tired of the fighting game, we switched to car racing. The first few games he beat me easily because I couldn’t figure out how he was getting so many speed bonuses.

  “Want to bet on the next game?” he asked as he dropped the controller into his lap. The sun was beating in through the window, so the room was getting warm. He stripped off the button up shirt he was wearing, tossing it onto the couch behind us.

  “No.” Was he crazy? I never won their bets.

  “Come on,” he said. “You’re getting better.” He leaned into me, tilting his head. He locked his crystal eyes on mine, making them big. His lip pouted. “Please?”

  I sensed there was something he wanted. “What’s the bet?”

  He flashed a grin. “Find out after the race.”

  I made a face at him. “No fair.”

  “Yeah, fair,” he said and he started the next game.

  Inside the race, I tried my best just to win fairly, but Gabriel was keen on crashing his car into mine and making side-swipes in front of me to get my car spinning out of control. Then he started nudging my elbow.