by Anna White
Everyone that passed in front of his truck seemed to know exactly where they were going. They all walked with a purpose, and the air seemed to crackle with anticipation. He'd found it hard to believe that soon he would be sitting next to them. That now he was one of them. One after another they had pulled into the parking lot, scuffled briefly with their papers and books, and then headed, en masse, towards the entrance.
Everyone but her.
She had arrived a few minutes after him and had parked a few cars down in the row directly across from his. Instead of getting out of her car, she just turned off the engine and sat there. Then, without warning, she dropped her head onto the steering wheel.
Lucian had watched her for several long minutes. He could tell that she wasn't injured, but she was so still. He wasn't sure what was happening; she was behaving in a completely different way than all the others. He felt an instinctive urge to help her, and knew the first step would be to go over and say something, but he had no idea what to say. What would a human girl want to hear from a stranger outside her window?
Before he could make up his mind she had gotten out of the car. She'd walked between the rows of cars, passing directly in front of his faded red Ford, without glancing to the left or right. He'd felt a rush of guilty relief tinged with disappointment as she walked by, thankful that she hadn't noticed him watching her.
She had a red mark on her forehead from pressing it against the steering wheel, but she was still beautiful. She moved like someone who didn't know how beautiful she was. Like someone who wasn't particularly worried about it either way. She was just tall enough for the top of her dark hair to brush his chin, and her body looked soft and slender. She was dressed simply in khakis and a t-shirt, and her movements were brisk and matter of fact.
He couldn't explain what made her stand out, but once she passed he couldn't tear his eyes away. He watched her until she vanished through the front doors. Then he realized he was holding his breath. He had no reason to care about this girl more than any of the others, but she captivated him. Why? he wondered. Who was she?
Chapter 10
Samara squeezed her eyes shut and tried to shake the feeling that she was bouncing around like the ball inside a pinball machine as the crowd jostled her toward her second hour class. Carin bounced along beside her, completely unphased by the crush of bodies and backpacks around them, and carried on a non-stop running commentary of things that had happened during summer vacation.
"There's Farrah!" Carin raised her hand high over her head and waved at a redheaded girl standing at a locker across the hall. "She snuck into her neighbor's pool while they were out of town and set off the burglar alarm, so her parents put her on house arrest for like forever.
"And Jason!" She blew a kiss toward a cluster of boys, and Samara saw one of them duck his head . "We went out once, before his family went out of town, and then he never called me back. But the beginning of the year is really busy, so here's hoping."
She waved two crossed fingers in front of Samara's eyes, then slammed to a sudden stop, causing an embarrassed freshman to blunder face first into her back. "Gotta go! See ya later!"
She disappeared through the door to the second floor stairwell, and Samara felt like she'd been left in the wake of a small tornado. Definitely going to need coffee to keep up with that, she thought. She continued down the hallway alone, sliding into second hour just before the tardy bell.
The rest of the morning classes slid by in a blur; every teacher seemed to do the exact same things. She was relieved when the lunch bell snapped her out of her reverie, and she scooped up her books and headed into the hall. Most of the students were heading to the right, towards the cafeteria, but she turned in the opposite direction. She elbowed her way through the crowd until the hall cleared and she stood outside the library.
The doors of the West Wimberley High library were different from any of the others in the building. Instead of generic, gray pressboard they were roughly hewn out of two enormous slabs of dark mahogany, and their surface was carved with scenes from novels on the school's reading list. A blast of cool air hit her in the face when she pushed the doors open, and she breathed in deeply, inhaling the smell of books, pencils, and the faint floral aroma embedded in the aging carpet.
For the first time since she left West Wimberley in May, she felt at home.
Chapter 11
Samara walked slowly through the stacks and settled into her favorite table, the one wedged into a corner behind the local history section. It was covered with shallow pen indentations and carved initials, and she ran her finger lightly over its scuffed surface. Her favorites were carved into the bottom left hand corner: D+M 4evr.
Where were you now? she wondered. Are you still together, 4evr?
The faint chatter of voices rose from other sections of the library, but nearby shelves blocked her view; she couldn't see anyone. She realized that for the first time today no one's eyes were on her, and she felt her muscles slowly relax. For the first time in the past three hours, she didn't have to wonder what anyone was thinking.
She pulled an apple out of one of the side pockets of her bag, polished it on her shirt, and took a big bite, enjoying the way it gave beneath her teeth with a satisfying crunch. A drop of juice trickled down her bottom lip and onto her chin, but she couldn't even muster the energy to wipe it away. Instead, she twisted on the hard chair and slid her legs beneath her. She closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the wall as she licked the juice from the edges of her lips. She was stretching her tongue down towards her chin when she heard his voice.
Her heart sped through a chorus of beats in the time it took to open her eyes. "I'm sorry?"
"May I sit with you?" Lucian repeated. He gestured to the battered chair across from her and dropped his backpack onto the floor without waiting for an answer.
"Absolutely!"
She responded with more enthusiasm than she'd intended and cringed inwardly. The tips of her ears burned as she leaned forward and slid her backpack off the table, and she discretely wiped her chin with the back of her hand. Honestly, she thought, I have got to pull myself together.
Lucian slid into the chair across from her and stared into her eyes. "Are you okay?"
"Sure."
She paused, but he didn't look away. His beautiful eyes stayed fixed on hers. After a few seconds she tore her gaze away and stared down at the table, forcing herself to focus on the smooth surface of the apple in her hand. "Why do you ask?"
"You're sitting here in the corner. All alone. With your eyes closed."
Samara peeked back at Lucian and saw that he was still looking at her intently.
"Not that there's anything wrong with that," he continued. "You're just the only person I've seen today that sits around with their eyes closed. You seem to do it a lot."
Samara shifted beneath his stare. His obvious scrutiny should make her uncomfortable, but somehow it didn't. "Don't you know that's the best way to eat an apple?" she joked. "And I don't do it a lot. I've only been here for a minute."
She raised her eyes and met his gaze, determined not to act as completely dazzled by him as she felt. His eyes were spellbinding. The hard edge of the table pressed against her stomach and she pulled back, realizing that she was unconsciously leaning forward, closing the distance between them.
"I saw you in your car this morning," he said. He hesitated before he spoke again. "You looked like you would be happy to be anywhere but here."
His words crashed into her like bullets. This beautiful, perfect boy had seen her acting like a crazy person. That's why he wanted to talk to her. He was probably afraid she was going to jump out a third story window. Her nerves jangled with humiliation and every instinct told her to run, but she couldn't look away. "Why didn't you say something before?" she whispered. "In the office, or in the hallway?"
Lucian shrugged his shoulders. "I didn't know what to say. I
didn't know I was going to see you again, but when I walked into the office, there you were. It didn't really seem to fit into the introductions."
He reached toward her entreatingly, his hands turned palm up on the table. "I didn't want to upset you. You already seemed a little…" He hesitated, choosing each word carefully. "Fraught."
Samara's body moved before she had time to think; she threw her chair back from the table so hard it wobbled onto two legs. "You're right," she snapped. "I guess I am a little fraught."
She reached for her backpack and jerked herself out of the chair. "Just so you know," she added, "I'm not a total spaz. I know it must seem like it, based today, but I'm not. It was just a long summer." She turned away as a knot sealed her throat, and her eyes burned with humiliated, angry tears.
Chapter 12
Lucian stared at her in confusion. He wasn't sure why he had come over in the first place, but he had. He'd sat across from her and told the truth, and now she was upset.
He thought of ways to comfort her, but he was afraid that anything he said would make the situation worse. A flash of frustration surged through him. A glimpse of the future would make this so much easier.
He had been heading toward the cafeteria when Samara passed him in the hallway. She was going in the opposite direction as everyone else, and he was seized with a sudden, irrepressible whim to follow her. He hadn't really meant to talk to her, but when he'd seen her curled up alone in the corner the urge was irresistible. He'd been warned that human emotions were strong, and he was starting to understand how true that was.
As soon as he took the first step toward her, he'd known it was a mistake, but that hadn't stopped him. For the first time he'd been out of control. Between the training and his thousands of years watching over the Timeline he knew more about humans than any of the Host, but knowledge couldn't save him from himself.
"Wait," he said. "I'm sorry." His hand twitched toward her, then stilled at his side.
Samara turned towards him, and he could see tears glittering in the corners of her eyes. The way she was looking at him made him feel painfully human. He surrendered the last remaining shreds of his good judgment and decided to be completely honest.
"I wasn't trying to make you uncomfortable," he said.
She didn't respond, and he yearned to know what she was thinking.
"I was just trying to tell you-," he continued, "-very badly, that you are the most intriguing, beautiful person I've ever met. I didn't mean to suggest anything more than that."
Chapter 13
Samara listened to Lucian in disbelief. The words coming out of his mouth were too sweet to be real. She glanced around furtively to see if anyone was waiting to jump out and yell "Gotcha!"
"It was totally out of place for me to say anything," he continued. "Can we start over? Forget everything that just happened?"
She was sure she wasn't going to forget the sound of Lucian's low, gentle voice saying that she was beautiful, but she nodded automatically. It seemed like the only thing to do. Her emotions were so mixed up that she wasn't sure whether she was thrilled, disbelieving, or sad. All she was sure of was that she was using most of her mental energy to keep from shifting towards him.
"Okay," she said. "Let's start over. If you walked up to me under normal circumstances I would say something like, 'How's your first day going?'"
Lucian's eyes were still riveted on her face, and the intensity of his gaze made her thoughts muddled. "And you would say…?" she prompted.
A burst of laughter followed by loud shushing echoed through the stacks, and Lucian's eyes darted toward the sound. "It's a little overwhelming." he said. "And more crowded than I expected." He gave her an embarrassed smile. "I'm really not sure how to put it into words. Everything is just more."
Samara nodded. "I know exactly what you mean."
The bell rang and she could hear books slamming and chairs dragging across the floor. She realized that she'd been holding the apple, forgotten, in her hand. Only one bite was missing, and she rubbed her thumb slowly over its smooth skin. She hadn't eaten since breakfast, but her stomach was too full of butterflies to be hungry.
"I guess it's time to go," she said. She aimed the apple into a trash can several feet away and it hit the bottom with a metallic thunk. "Where are you headed?"
Lucian pulled his schedule out of his pocket and scanned down the small lines of type. "It looks like I have P.E. right now. In Gymnasium A, wherever that is."
"Follow me." Samara walked in front of him, and together they stepped out into the bright hallway. "It looks like we have P.E. together."
Chapter 14
P.E. was Samara's least favorite class. Coach Cottlebum was a large, heavyset woman with a hint of a beard. Samara assumed that at some point in her life she had loved both sports and children, but something had changed. Now, she seemed to hate them both. She was able to take activities that were potentially fun, like badminton, and turn them into grueling ordeals that would fit right into any boot camp training program.
After three years with Coach Cottlebum, Samara knew the day would bring one of only two options. The first, and most desirable, was that Coach Cottlebum would ignore them completely and read a romance novel. No one would dress out, and everyone would talk and do their nails. The second possibility was that Coach Cottlebum would actually notice them. When that happened, she took their intrusion into her gym as a person affront and made them do wind sprints or crab crawls until someone threw up.
Samara was relieved to see Coach Cottlebum reading. The first section of bleachers was already filled with girls, some waving flirtatiously at the boys on the other side of the gym. She slipped into the second row and dropped her backpack beside Carin and a spiky haired blonde named Bethanny Tarver.
Bethanny was watching Carin make exaggerated kissy faces towards Jason Stanton. He had turned his back on the girls' side of the gym and appeared to be having an intent conversation with a skinny boy sitting behind him. It was obvious, at least to Samara, that he was ignoring Carin just as industriously as she was trying to get his attention.
"Better tone it down girl," Bethanny said. She leaned forward and rested her chin on Carin's shoulder. "Coach Dobbs will think you're into him." She jerked her chin in the direction of the boys' coach who had his chest puffed out and was smiling broadly in their direction.
"No!" Carin gasped. She gave a little squeal and bounced around to face them. "I just can't help myself. Jason is so hot! I've been trying to talk to him all day, but we keep missing each other."
She stuck her chin out in a mock pout, then quickly shifted her attention and reached across Bethanny's lap to pat Samara on the knee. "Speaking of hot!" she said, "How about that new guy? Isn't he just the most gorgeous thing you've ever seen?"
She jabbed Bethanny in the ribs. "Have you seen him?"
Carin gestured flamboyantly toward the boys' side of the gym without waiting for an answer. "He's over there. In the back. The one that looks like a sexy woodsman."
Samara met Bethanny's eye and choked back a laugh. "Why a woodsman?" she asked.
"I don't know…. He looks muscular; he's wearing plaid. He can swing my ax any time!" Carin nudged Bethanny's knee with her elbow and giggled.
Bethanny rolled her eyes. "I can only guess what that's supposed to mean," she snorted.
Carin leaned closer and lowered her voice like she was about to reveal a secret. "I don't know which one I want to go out with first," she whispered. "Lucian Smith or Jack Stone."
Chapter 15
Jack stood alone in the center of the boys' locker room. He wrinkled his nose as he looked around at the chipped green lockers, mostly still empty and hanging open on their hinges, and the industrial metal benches that were bolted to the floor. A stiff sock lurked in a back corner, and he suspected it was just a small contributor to the overall funkiness of the room.
Coach Dobbs had sent him in to look for sp
are shorts. He knew the Coach was trying to be nice, but it was pathetic really. As if he would touch an old gym uniform worn by a some overgrown jock who probably didn't wear underwear and never washed his clothes. The whole idea made him want to heave.
He was far more interested in himself. He walked over to one of the grimy, full length mirrors hanging on the wall and saw the reflection of a tall, broad shouldered boy. He ran a hand down the contours of his arm and watched his gray t-shirt ripple as the muscles moved in response. When he lifted the edge of his shirt slightly at the bottom, he revealed a smooth, muscular stomach. He flexed his abs experimentally, then dropped his shirt and leaned in close to study his face.
This wasn't his favorite body. It was too young to legally do some of the things he most enjoyed. It was, however, undeniably attractive. And really, he smirked, when had legalities ever stopped him?
He traced his fingertips along the hard line of his jaw and across the high, chiseled cheekbones reflected in the mirror, then turned his face from side to side and looked at his thick honey colored hair. He looked wholesome. Innocent. Like a frickin' All-American, he thought.
The most arresting thing about his face, what he knew he would use to his advantage, were his eyes. They were a deep, smoky gray and framed with lashes so lush and dark they would make any girl jealous. No, this wasn't his favorite body. But it would definitely do.
Footsteps echoed in the concrete hallway that separated the boys' and girls' locker rooms, and he turned away from the mirror and pretended to look in one of the open lockers. When he heard the door slam shut behind him he turned and arched an eyebrow. "Looking for shorts?" he asked. "They're all yours."
