“I…” Yes. Or I wanted to meet him somewhere. “You don’t have to.”
“That’s not what I asked. I’m close. Can I come up?”
It felt like the world shrank around me, bubble-wrapping me in my paper room. After what I’d told him last night, I wasn’t sure Jackson would want to see me anymore. Finally, I said, “Yes.”
“Good. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
I stood, shoving my phone in my pocket, and reached up to touch my glasses. Great, I’d forgotten my contacts again. Nothing I could do about that now.
Before I could change my mind, I walked to the elevator. Dad was at work even though it was a Saturday. Mom was still in her office working on Santas, and Mae was probably in her room—and I didn’t blame her.
I slid on her Toms and got into the elevator. Step one: Press the button. Step two: Watch the numbers to keep my breathing even. Step three: Don’t expect anything. Just breathe.
When the elevator released me to the lobby, I stood there for a long moment, searching for Jackson. I didn’t see him yet, and someone bumped into my arm.
“Excuse me,” she said.
“Sorry, sorry,” I mumbled, clasping my hands together. I stepped out of the way, my back pressing against the cold wall. My lungs tightened.
Two deep breaths. It was a lobby. I lived here. I was outside of my apartment by myself and nothing was happening.
Jackson entered the building. He started toward the check-in desk, nodding to a woman who pushed a stroller.
Then his eyes locked with mine, and he slowed his pace. The concern there propelled my feet forward until I was walking as steadily as he was to meet at the awkward chairs in the middle of the lobby.
Jackson reached out, gripping my arm gently. “What are you doing down here?”
My chin wobbled. I told him honestly, “I wanted to see you.”
His breath rushed out, and he wrapped his arms around me. “Are you okay? Should we go upstairs?”
I eased back, but Jackson kept one arm firm around my back, giving me tingles. I glanced to the elevator, unsure. “I don’t know.”
In my fantasy world, we ran away hand in hand, losing ourselves on a paper vacation.
He lifted his eyebrows. “You want to stay down here?” He looked around the lobby as if searching for somewhere safe. “We can sit.”
“Here?” I stared at the slick leather chairs in the middle of the space.
He smiled. I melted. “Why not?”
“It’s…in the middle. Everyone can see us.”
“You think anyone cares what we’re doing? Here, let’s ask this nice old guy if he cares what we’re doing. Excuse me—”
“No, Jackson. Please.” I pulled on his arm, trying to turn him back to me. “Please don’t.”
“You’re scary strong, Zoe. Okay, how about…” He pointed to the courtyard. “There? It looks quiet. And empty.”
“Good. Yes.”
I started in that direction, but Jackson captured my hand and walked with me. Some of my worries from last night slid away. Jackson was here. He wasn’t judging me. Maybe he could understand.
In the courtyard, a fountain spouted water from a stone fish, and matching concrete benches surrounded dozens of planters. I’d never been here before.
When I saw that no one else sat outside, the knot in my stomach eased. Jackson led us to a bench near the fountain, close enough that water splattered onto the stone beside him, which he seemed to find amusing.
Good thing. I had no idea what to say to him. No. Wrong. I knew exactly what I wanted to say, I was just too afraid to say it.
Jackson scratched his chin. “Let’s start with how…I’m grateful you told me what you did last night, even if I acted surprised.”
“Surprised,” I said. More like shocked.
His eyes crinkled. “You’d just told me that basically people are your kryptonite. That doesn’t bode well for me.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I guess…you could look at it that way.”
“How do you choose to look at it?”
“Like…” I ducked my chin. Jackson’s fingers linked with mine, the strength and warmth of them giving me an extra boost of confidence. “Like there’s more for me than this. But also like…” Pretend you’re talking to BlackKNIGHT. “Like it’s okay to be me.”
“I really like this Zoe,” Jackson whispered. “But I see what you’re saying. You want to be yourself, but be able to do the things that scare you, too. Be a Zoe who sees the world, who lives in it.” He smiles. “And still be you.”
My breath caught in my throat. So, he did understand.
“Yes.” I looked up at him. Eye contact. “Will you help me?”
36.
JACKSON
“Of course,” I told her. I wanted to help Zoe. I wanted to help her fix this. “I’ll do whatever you need me to do. Why did you and Mae fight?”
Zoe stared at our entwined fingers. “She was—she was mad at me because I was scared to…” Her shoulders moved in a shrug. “Scared to talk to you. Or to do anything, really, and that I didn’t understand her side of all this. How things have b-been for her. I…” Zoe looked up, eyes sad. “She’s right. It hasn’t been fair. And—and if I don’t fix this, I won’t be able to go to her graduation. And there’s this paper exhibit at the art museum, but…”
Her cheeks turned red. “I’m babbling.”
“You’re talking.” I wiggled her hand so she’d look at me. “People do that sometimes. It’s called venting. It’s actually therapeutic.”
“I’d have to check with my therapist on that.”
I nodded. “What do you think they’d say?”
“She’d say, ‘Jackson’s right, Zoe. It’s okay to talk about your problems. We all have them.’”
“I have to say, I agree completely. What else does your therapist say?”
“I n-need to take steps.”
When she said it like that, it reminded me of my dad, of the steps he was supposedly taking to get his life back together. But I had far more faith in Zoe than I had in my dad, which was why I hadn’t called him back yet.
“What kind of steps?” I asked gently.
She squirmed in her seat, pulling her hand away and brushing the bangs from her forehead. “Check the mail. Dumb, huh? Do things with people.”
“So, I’m just an assignment. A step.”
Her eyes flashed to mine. “No. Oh God, Jackson, that’s not—”
“I was just joking,” I said, giving her a smile. “Sorry. Was that one of your steps? Asking me to stay last night for the movie?”
Her fingers twined together. “I w-wanted you to stay.”
“I believe you. I wanted to stay. I want…” I shoved my hand through my hair. I wanted more than that. I wanted a relationship with Zoe. I wanted her to know I was BlackKNIGHT. Then it would make sense why I already felt so close to her. I felt like I knew parts of her she was too afraid to share with me in person.
Zoe’s eyes lingered on my face, wide behind her glasses.
I reached up and touched the rims. “I like these.”
“Oh. It’s—I forgot to put in my contacts. I…”
“I like them,” I repeated. “So, steps. I like the idea of steps, too.”
“Why? Steps are scary.”
“Steps are exciting. Especially if you let me help. I get to…” I grinned. “I get to take you places. Outside.”
“Oh, no…I don’t know…” She stood from the stone bench, hair in her eyes again. “You saw what happened when I checked the mail.”
“And then you still came down here to meet me in the lobby, which was incredibly brave, and it hasn’t resulted in disaster yet.”
“Yet.”
I grabbed her hand as she started to back up, pulling her closer. She took small footsteps, stopping just an inch from my shoes.
“It might not be a disaster at all, you know.” I took her other hand. “We might actually stay here longer without any
thing terrible happening. And then we might go back upstairs and make plans for those steps you were talking about. And when you clam up on me, we might play a game of chess to get you to relax again.”
Her mouth parted, bottom lip jutting out farther than the top. Enough to distract me from trying to distract her. “You…”
I eased her closer, tempted to pull her into my lap. “What?”
“You’re trying to make me nervous.”
“I absolutely am not.”
“Then what are you trying to do?”
“I’m trying to be straightforward with you. So you know how I feel. So you won’t be nervous.”
“It’s hard.”
“It’ll be easier the more time you spend around me. Can I ask you something?”
She blinked. “What?”
“How did all this start? The anxiety?”
Her cheeks reddened. Her voice turned small when she said, “It’s stupid. I—I always used to be nervous about things. My dad would always make me and Mae be in his car commercials—the producers said little kids help sell things. Mae loved it, but I was always doing it wrong and I hated it. I’d always feel sick beforehand and freeze up when the camera was on me. Anyway, I was supposed to do the last one halfway through the school day, but I had to go to school first because I had a speech to give—which I was already nervous about. I hated speeches, too.”
I nodded, able to relate. “I hear you. Speeches suck.”
“When I got out of Mae’s car at school, I got my skirt caught in the door and it ripped a little. Mom was busy and couldn’t come bring me a new one until later, so I had to safety pin it. It was so obvious. And then—then at lunch, I spilled orange juice all over my clothes—right before I was supposed to give my speech. I freaked out and found Mae to see if she’d let me borrow her shirt and she could just wear her cheerleading stuff, but I was so stressed and worried about the—the speech and the commercial that I had a panic attack right in the hallway. It was the first time, but it scared me to death. Mae, too.”
“Zoe,” I said softly. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s—it sounds dumb, but sometimes after that, when I was nervous about something, I’d have a panic attack. Or I’d worry so much about having a panic attack whenever I went somewhere, I’d have one before I even left. After a while, it was just easier not to go anywhere.”
“Not dumb,” I assured her. “Kind of a snowball effect, right?”
She nodded.
I opened my mouth to tell her I understood about things being overwhelming. Then I shoved away the image of my dad staggering through the house with a bottle of Jack in one hand. That wasn’t something I could talk about now.
Her eyes dashed across my face, and then she jumped when she heard her phone beep. She pulled it out and frowned at the message.
“It’s my mom,” she said. “She’s worried. I didn’t tell her I was coming down here.”
I stood with a nod. “We can go up.”
Zoe glanced around the courtyard. “I’m not sure I want to.”
Her words encouraged me. “That’s a good thing. But, still, it was your mom. Is that okay? If I come up? We can make plans to go out again. Somewhere safe.”
Her shoulders relaxed at the words. Safe. That was key for her. Somewhere she wasn’t overwhelmed. It would be a good starting point.
Zoe let me take her hand easily this time, and we went upstairs together.
…
I stood in her study while she hunted down her chessboard. She’d added to her paper wall and the ceiling. Some of the shooting stars hung so low, they almost touched my head.
When Zoe returned, I pulled out my phone. “Can I take a picture?”
Her eyes widened.
“Of the wall.”
“Oh. I guess. I mean, it’s just a wall. It’s—”
“Badass.”
I took a few pictures, making sure I got a close-up of Saturn. It was my favorite. She’d even gotten the colors right.
“What else can you make?”
Zoe set the chessboard on the window seat in the sunshine and started setting up. “Lots of origami. Stars and boxes and birds and frogs.”
“Will you make me something?”
She stopped placing the pieces. “If you want me to.”
I nodded.
She walked to her paper stand and pulled out a red sheet. At her desk, she wound her hair up and shoved a pencil through it, exposing her long neck. I never wanted to leave this room again.
Then she straightened. “You’re watching.”
I pulled off my glasses and the room went blurry around me. I could still see Zoe’s smile, though.
“Can you just…turn around?”
I obliged, replacing my glasses and studying the rest of the wall. “You think you’re going to keep working on this? Or maybe try a new project?”
“Well…I want to finish all the planets, and I haven’t done Earth yet. But I got really sidetracked with the…the meteors because they were fun…” Her voice trailed off in concentration. But, distracted enough not to notice how much she was talking, she continued without me prompting her. “But I’d love to do something big. A huge project. Like the Eiffel Tower or something. It’d be so hard, and I’d need tons of paper but…it would be fun.”
So was listening to her talk. Her voice was light and high, like an adult telling a story to a child. I just needed to keep her comfortable so she’d talk to me like this all the time.
But how? Never look at her?
“Okay,” Zoe said. “It’s done.”
I turned around, and she placed a small paper heart in my hand.
She blushed. “It’s not—I mean, it’s just because I just learned how to do it. Make a heart, I mean.”
“I like it.”
“If you—if you blow in the end, it’ll pop open. You know, 3-D heart.”
When I looked at the paper, uncertain, she plucked it from my hand and pressed the small hole at the end to her lips. She blew softly and the paper expanded. The heart filled with air.
She gave it back.
“That was really cool. You think I could do that?”
“Make a paper heart? Sure. There are a lot of steps, but once you figure them out, it’s not too hard.”
“You’ll show me then. One day,” I decided. “Can I keep this?”
“Sure.”
I compressed the heart and stuck it in my wallet so I could keep it with me.
“Now, we play chess.”
That seemed to relieve her. We sat on opposite sides of the chessboard, me at black and her at white. Just like how we always played on Chess Challenge, and my original inspiration for using the name BlackKNIGHT. More than once I opened my mouth to tell her I knew she was Rogue, and that I was BlackKNIGHT. More than once, I stopped myself.
“I didn’t know you played chess so well,” she said.
“You inspired me.” I smiled when she made her first move. “That day on the bleachers.”
“Really?”
“You were…committed.” I moved a pawn and saw her smile. It was the same opening we’d just done on our last match. “Kind of like your paper wall. You don’t do things halfway. You grab on and commit yourself to doing the best you can. Nothing less than dazzling.”
“Nothing less than dazzling,” she murmured, cheeks reddening. “That was kind of poetic.”
“Just another kind of art. Like your wall. Like the heart.”
She laughed, amused. “Rhyming, too? Now I’m impressed.”
“I didn’t mean to rhyme, but it worked. I think we should go to the museum and see the art exhibit. I saw a brochure at the library.”
She knocked over one of her knights, then scrambled to pick it up. “You know how many people go to the museum?”
“A healthy number.”
She choked on a laugh. “A healthy number? Jackson, you—”
“Wait, stop.”
She froze, her fingers still on he
r knight. “What?”
“You don’t say my name often. Just wanted to savor it.”
“Oh God,” she whispered under her breath. She moved her pawn.
I grinned. “Do it again.”
“No.”
Just like Rogue.
“Zoe. Say my name.”
She ducked her chin. “Jackson.”
“Will you look at me when you say it?”
“Demanding,” she muttered, fingers plucking at a stray piece of lint on the window cushion.
“Please?”
Zoe took a deep breath, lifted her chin, and met my eyes. Her perfect lips formed one word. “Jackson.”
“You’re very good at that.”
She looked away, blushing again. “I can’t even be around you. I—I say things I shouldn’t and you—you think this is normal for me. It’s not. It’s…”
“Life would be awfully boring if we were all the same. All ‘normal.’ That’s what my mom always used to say, and she was right. I like that you’re different. I like that I can tell you how I feel, because it doesn’t make me self-conscious. And I don’t care if you do things differently.”
“Your mom sounds like she was cool.”
“She was.”
And she would have liked Zoe.
Zoe took the pencil from her hair, and it fell, straight and shiny, to her shoulders. “What about your dad?”
I was picturing reaching out to touch her hair, so her question caught me off guard. “My dad?”
She nodded, dropping her eyes again. “You don’t talk about him much.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Is he…is he like your mom?”
I moved another pawn. Not the best strategy, but I couldn’t focus on the game now. “No.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “We don’t have to talk about him. How about your house? What’s your house like?”
Shit. I didn’t want to lie to her. Not after I just told her I liked that she was different. Not after she confided in me about her nerves. It wasn’t fair.
“It’s not…like yours.”
She waited for me to continue.
“I just…don’t have a good relationship with my dad.” I watched her fingers brush the head of her rook before choosing her bishop.
Her lips pressed together, and she angled her head. Probably trying to make sense of what I’d said. Probably brimming with a dozen other questions she was either too polite or too scared to ask.
Paper Girl Page 15
