by S. L. Naeole
“You’re just going to have to get used to it,” he pronounced, his voice tinged with cockiness. I felt the corner of my mouth twitch at his sureness. I had been living in my body my whole life, and he already thought he knew me better than I knew myself.
He was right.
“Go on, Grace. He’s waiting for you. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
I felt the warmth rise up in me, knowing that he meant he’d be with me when I woke up, and the thought filled me with anticipation. He clicked his tongue in disapproval at my thoughts, and I stuck mine out as I walked away, not needing to say goodbye because he already heard it in my thoughts.
The bike was gone by the time I reached the door, but whether it was started or pushed, I didn’t know.
***
After bypassing the twenty-one question brigade from Janice, and mumbling a quick response to Dad’s “how was the movie” question, I raced upstairs. Graham was sitting on my bed, staring out of the window.
“You really should knock,” he muttered. He turned around and I could tell by the lines around his mouth that whatever it was he wanted to talk about wasn’t going to be pleasant.
“I wasn’t aware that I needed to knock when entering my own room. Besides, you’re the one who’s in here uninvited.”
He tossed something at me, and with reflexes I know did not belong to me, I caught it. For a brief moment, a glimmer of surprise passed through Graham’s eyes, but it was quickly replaced with the same despondent look. I cast a quick glance at the object that I had caught, and then looked back up at him.
“Where did you get this?”
He nodded his head towards the nightstand next to my bed. “I found it in the drawer when I was getting your phone out. I wanted to call Lark, to explain…”
He had found one of the crystal baubles that had fallen off my lone dress. Its amber color gave off a sense of warmth, despite its cold exterior. I held it up to the artificial light above my head to look at its gold and brown shimmer.
“Grace-”
I lowered my head to look at him, the tone of his voice sounding so…lost, I felt a pain in my throat as my breath caught.
“Grace, are we…friends?” he asked, and I nodded dumbly while moving forward to sit next to him on the bed.
“So, if we’re friends, will you be honest with me when I ask you if you think I screwed up by asking out Stacy instead of Lark?”
I took a deep breath, because I felt the truth ready to pour out of my mouth. I forced it closed, biting my lips to keep them shut until I could organize my thoughts enough to make the words sound less abrasive and accusatory. Of course he had screwed up by asking Stacy out. But that wasn’t what he needed to hear.
“Graham, I know you like Lark a lot, but you’ve only known her for a short while, and it’s been even less time since you and Erica broke up. I think perhaps dating around really isn’t a bad thing.”
His snort told me that he knew I was trying to avoid answering the question, and was doing it badly to boot. I ignored it and continued, “I don’t know what made you choose Stacy. She’s Lark’s friend, too, and I think you might have made things a bit more difficult by asking her out, but I don’t think you screwed up. Not badly, anyway.”
He flung himself backwards on the bed, causing it to bounce the two of us up and down. I waited until we stopped moving before I asked him the one question I knew he probably wasn’t going to answer. “Do you regret asking Stacy out?”
Shaking his head, he sighed. “No, I don’t. Not yet, anyway. She’s cool…in a sadistic, painful, scary way. But it’ll be nice to hang out with someone who doesn’t care about all that superficial crap, you know? I’ll make things work, Grace. I won’t hurt her. I’ve learned my lesson.”
I nodded mutely, relieved that he would at least not take his mistake out on her, and threw myself back on the bed, the two of us lying in opposite directions, our feet dangling off the side of the bed. “You’re going to be one weird couple.”
“Oh, and like you and Robert aren’t?”
I raised myself up on my elbows and glared at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He covered his eyes with the crook of his arm, and grit his teeth. “You know what I mean, Grace. I might be a guy, but I know that all the girls think he’s the best thing since…well, me. And then there’s you: you’re a great person, Grace, and you’re beautiful in your own way, but when the two of you are together, it looks…odd. Like night and day, black and white.”
I couldn’t argue with him there. I had made that exact same argument several times to Robert myself. “Well, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, Graham. We’re not a pair of hormonally infatuated teenagers. I-” I had to stop to blink…hard. Hadn’t Robert just said the exact same thing to me? I shook my head, and continued, “-love him, and he loves me—unconditionally. He knows my faults, and I know his, and we accept them.” Boy, did we accept them.
Graham raised his arm and peeked out at me from beneath it. “You love each other unconditionally? Where am I? Some soap opera?”
I moved my leg and made contact between his head and my knee. “If we are, it’s one of your own making. Falling into deep-smit with my boyfriend’s sister, and then asking out her best friend instead? Really? Is that what you did in Florida during Christmas, Graham? Watch soap operas and take notes?”
Quickly, he reached over and grabbed my elbow and pulled it, knocking me down. “Actually, I thought of all the ways I would ask Lark out. I wrote it down, too.”
Curious, I asked him if I could see what he’d written. “Maybe later,” he replied.
I made him promise that he’d show me before he left to go and take a shower. As he shut my door behind him, worry took over any triumph I might have felt over being allowed to read what he had written about Lark. He had asked Stacy out on a date, which was just as good as dating, despite the fact that he had feelings for Lark…and none for her. What was going to become of all of us when the inevitable happened, and he and Stacy broke up? Did I even want to know?
QUEST UNLIKE
The first week of February brought with it far more snow than Ohio had seen in over three decades, and definitely more than we’d had the past two months, so when the sun miraculously appeared on the fifth day, it was no surprise that everyone in school was wearing tank tops and shorts. Everyone except me, of course.
Robert and I walked through the hallway looking as odd as Graham had described: him in a slinky, gunmetal gray short-sleeved shirt and khaki shorts, and me in a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt with a black and white long-sleeved shirt underneath. He had never complained about what I wore, and made it a point to compliment me when he picked me up every morning, but I couldn’t help but feel a slight stab of self-consciousness as we walked by the countless girls who all insisted on saying hello to him while ignoring me. They were all dressed in a manner that would have complimented him, while I was merely a distraction.
“You’re being silly, Grace,” he whispered into my ear as we walked into French class. I stopped dead in my tracks, causing Robert to slam into me, which propelled me forward. Ungracefully, I landed on the floor. Robert was at my side in an instant, immediately contrite and apologetic.
“It’s okay,” I reassured him. “I was the one who stopped. There was no way you’d have known what I was going to do.”
As he helped me up, making sure that I was genuinely alright, he asked me why I had stopped in the first place. Quickly, I pointed to the decorations on the wall and dangling from the ceiling. His gaze drifted up to the construction paper hearts and cupids that were hanging from ribbons and what looked like fishing line tied to them.
“Cherubim hate these things, too,” he chuckled, and led me to my seat at the back of the class. “But, their reasons are far more different than yours, I’m sure.”
I wrinkled my nose at the wash of pinks and reds that surrounded us. “I’ve never liked this holiday. I thought maybe it was bec
ause I never had anyone to celebrate it with, but now I know that has nothing to do with it.”
He smiled at my disgusted expression and brushed my cheek with the backs of his fingers. “We really don’t appreciate it too much ourselves. The cherubim especially despise it.”
I looked around us to see if anyone was listening to our conversation, but thankfully, we were the only ones seated. “Why do you keep saying cherubim? And why wouldn’t angels like Valentine ’s Day?”
Sensing my concern of being overheard, he reached for my hand. Cherubim are angels who often get confused with those little fetuses with wings that Madame Hidani has glued to the ceiling. Humans call them cupids and cherubs, but I’m sure if they’ve ever seen one in person, they’d be quite surprised…and pleased.
I raised my eyes up to look at a cut out of the “fetus with wings” and snorted. But what about you? Why don’t you like it?
His eyes flicked towards the seat in front of me and smiled as the girl who took her seat flashed a full set of teeth in his direction, obviously pleased to have garnered any kind of response from him. Lacey Greene couldn’t hold back any kind of glee that his attention had been diverted from me, and I would bet money that if she could have, she would have clapped.
I’m not a fan of any particular holiday that depicts my kind as anything but what we are. During Christmas and Easter, we’re usually gowned in sheets, with trumpets in our hands…trumpets—ugh. But on Valentine’s day, they dress us in diapers, and put little harps in our arms, a quiver on our backs, a bow in our hands. We’re infantile, with no other purpose other than to infest your kind with hormone tipped arrows.
You’d think that humans would be a bit more creative…or generous with their depictions of us. Or, at the very least, a bit more accurate, especially given how much they do know about my kind.
He turned to face me, his eyes full of mischief as he leaned forward and unexpectedly pressed a quick kiss to the corner of my lips. Then again, the human being’s lack of creativity can sometimes make it that much easier to shock them with something as mundane as a little kiss.
I raised my hand to my mouth and touched the spot that he had brushed with his mouth. Sometimes I wonder about you angels, to think that a little kiss, especially one from you, could ever be considered mundane.
The bell rang and I turned in my seat to see Lacey scowl. Obviously Robert had not been talking about me. He had read her thoughts, and needed to make it clear to her that he wasn’t interested without actually telling her. It was a good tactic; I certainly approved of his methods.
As we listened to Madame Hidani discuss the merits of conversational French in the varying dialects throughout the world, a voice boomed in over the loud speaker.
“It’s that time of the year again, Bulldogs! The annual Valentine’s Day Dance! Tickets go on sale today during lunch, and they’re expected to go quick, so get yours while they’re hot!”
The bubbling of excitement nearly drowned Madame Hidani out as she began once again to go over today’s lesson plan and I groaned as I realized that the class of all girls was excited at the prospect of asking one person in particular to the dance. Even Madame Hidani stopped speaking as all eyes turned to Robert; he glowed from the attention, and I felt terribly inadequate.
“I guess it’s too bad that I’m scheduled to work that night,” he said in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, and the room nearly burst with the groans of disappointment that erupted from everyone there but the two of us and one relieved French teacher.
“So you really do have to work?” I asked, feeling incredibly relieved at the prospect of not being forced to attend any formal event in front of the school.
He nodded his head as he took out his text book and pulled my desk towards his. “I requested to work the closing shifts from now on.”
Puzzled, I glanced at the text book. He had turned to a page regarding the different countries that utilize French in their daily administration. “Any particular reason for doing that?”
“Yes. This way, I’m not working during the same shift as Graham.”
I felt my mouth turn up, a silly grin spreading across my face. “You did that for me?”
He nodded, pleased by my reaction. “Your happiness means everything to me, Grace. When the original night shift manager quit, I saw the opportunity to do this, and I took it. It didn’t take much to convince the general manager to let me fill the slot. I might have cheated a bit, but it was worth it if you’re pleased.”
“I’ve turned you into a con.”
He chuckled at that. “Maybe I conned you into thinking I was an angel or something.”
I was about to argue with him when Madame Hidani called out my name. “Y-oui, Madame Hidani?” I answered, correcting myself before the English slipped out. As soon as that bell rang, Madame Hidani had a French only policy, and I had nearly broken the number one rule in her classroom.
“Which country has the second largest French speaking population in the world?” she asked me in French, a lone eyebrow raised in anticipation.
“Algeria, Madame Hidani,” I replied, a smug smile sliding across my face as her eyebrow lowered.
With a determined gleam in her eye, she asked me another question in French. “And what type of dialect do they speak in Algeria?”
“Maghreb-French, Madame Hidani.”
Satisfied—or defeated—she turned her back to me and started once again to go over today’s lesson. I turned my head back to Robert and saw his wink, no matter how quickly he might have done it. “Thank you,” I mouthed.
It was my pleasure. It’s quite amusing, helping you cheat by giving you the answers. I might have to do it more often. He winked again, and then motioned to face the front of the class before we drew the attention of Madame Hidani once more.
When the bell rang to head to Calculus, I was overwhelmed by the crush of girls who surrounded Robert and I—well, mainly Robert—and I backed away towards the exit. He could take care of himself, so I simply walked out of the door, fully intent on waiting there until he exited as well. I should have known he’d be there already.
“Don’t you think that the girls will be suspicious that one minute you’re there, and the next, you’re not?” I asked as we walked hand in hand towards Mrs. Hoppbakker’s classroom.
“No. Humans like to believe what they want, no matter what the facts staring them in the face might be telling them. Besides, those girls were too busy sizing each other up to notice my departure. You, on the other hand, never miss a thing.” As we walked through the doorway of our math class, we were once again inundated by girls who were determined to ask Robert to the Valentine’s dance.
“Um, Robert…do you think you might be interested in going with me to the dance on Valentine’s day?” one girl named Jennifer Hall asked nervously. I almost felt bad for her, knowing what his answer would be. I say almost because as soon as she got the rejection she obviously had not been expecting, she shot me a look of pure venom.
“If you keep turning down girls, I might have to seriously start considering taking Stacy on as my personal bodyguard,” I kidded as he led us to our seats.
“Would you rather I tell them yes?”
“Well, what if you didn’t have to work that night. Would you say yes to one of them?”
He reached forward to touch the loose strands of hair that had slipped free of my ponytail and smiled. “Only if you asked.”
I rolled my eyes. “Formal occasions aren’t my thing.”
He chuckled as he pushed my hair back, a soft sigh coming from his lips as he did so. “You’re wrong. They are so your thing.”
I raised my hand to adjust my hair and groaned as I realized he had fixed it for me. And probably in a much neater, and tighter ponytail, too. “Sure. The last time I went to a formal thing, I ended up hurting my hand, got grounded, and you nearly broke up with me.”
His lips curled over his teeth as he hissed. I winced—the sound of his disappr
oval seemed to be bouncing inside of my head, nicking my mind; it hurt. His eyes grew wide and round as soon as he realized what had happened, his hands on my face, concern saturating his beautiful features. I am so sorry, Grace. I don’t know why this keeps happening.
I shook my head at his apology. There was no need for it—he hadn’t intended to hurt me. I knew that better than he probably did.
It doesn’t explain why it keeps happening though. His eyes were filled with worry, and I nodded in agreement. It didn’t explain why it kept happening, or what it meant. His thoughts weren’t meant to be heard by me, but for whatever reason, I inexplicably had, and the result was painful. It was a testament to my humanity, I suppose.
As class started, the confused and self-deprecating expression that seemed tattooed onto his face only grew harsher and darker. I turned my attention to the day’s work, intent on asking him what he was thinking about as soon as the bell rang.
Instead, as we filed out of the classroom an hour later, he quickly handed me off to Stacy and left, mumbling something about not wanting to be late for third period. I stood there dumbly staring after him, Stacy looking just as perplexed as I felt.
As Stacy and I walked towards the library for free period, I could still feel the mild tingling sensations in my head. Stacy, seeing my frustrated appearance, asked what was wrong. “I just have a headache,” I lied, and cringed as the slight twinges increased in significance.
“Oh, well maybe it’s math that did that. Calculus always gives me a headache.”
I nodded, not wanting to say any more as we entered the library and headed towards our usual table. It was a shock to see Lark sitting there alone, an obviously phony smile plastered on her face. “What are you doing here?” I asked as we sat down.
