Book of Love (3 page)

“
You made it
,” he whispered. “And
just in time for the prom committee to preach.” He rolled his eyes.
“Why do they insist on making us get involved? Besides, it’s
like,
months
away
.
”

I nodded, taking out a piece of paper and
eyeing the list of less-than-essential prom notes on the board. I
blew at a strand of hair that had obstructed my vision. I was
already anxious for lunch.

Wes:

I threw my lunch down on the table,
startling Jane out of a trance.

“
Hey, Jane. I’ve been
meaning to apologize about the other night.”

I sat down, rummaging
through the lunch my foster mother had packed. I’d fallen asleep on
the couch while we were watching the movie
Constantine
. I felt like an idiot
for sleeping on Jane’s shoulder, but she didn’t seem to care, which
was a good sign. My bouts of exhaustion were part of this illness I
seemed to have. Perhaps it was cancer, here to put me out of my
misery.

Jane set a carton of milk on the table.

“
I can’t
believe they’re making us eat outside. It’s
raining.”
She glanced at
me and then looked to the sky.

Jane had changed the subject as she always
did. I felt my heart sink.

“
Seems strange for this
time of year,” I added, forgetting what I’d said before, knowing it
was a failed attempt to find some significance in what we had
done.

Jane refused to talk about us. After what
had happened this summer, I figured I’d finally had her. The next
day, though, Jane acted like it never happened. Even now, nothing
was said.

“
Yeah.” Jane’s voice was
sad, like it always was. “It’s been raining more and more every
year, and earlier too.”

I swallowed a bite of sandwich, staring at
her long lashes as I chewed. Jane’s eyes were locked on the table,
her finger scratching at the wood.

“
Are you
still… you know…
having
nightmares?
” I asked, afraid to bring up
the subject.

Jane’s gaze rose from the table and met
mine. Her voice was low as she responded.

“
Yeah. Everyday for the
past ten years. Why stop now, right?” Her voice had an annoyed
edge.

I took another bite of burger.

“
Have you told your
mother?” It was a dumb question. I knew Jane didn’t tell her mother
anything—she only told me.

Jane snorted. “No. She’ll probably just blow
me off like she always does.”

I dropped the subject.

A loud giggle erupted from across the
courtyard and we both looked in the direction of the sound,
recognizing the tone. Jane shook her head as we watched Emily flirt
with a senior by the basketball courts.

She snorted.
“
Great
.”

I pressed my lips
together, feeling sorry for Jane. “I can’t believe Emily’s talking
to him. He’s probably the biggest druggy in school.
What is she thinking?
” I
looked at Jane for affirmation.

Jane glared at me, probably disliking that
I’d emphasized the druggy part. I’d said the wrong thing.

She picked up her milk, taking a sip through
the straw. “Well, looks like I have my work cut out for me. So much
for senior year.” Jane dropped her milk to the table as the carton
slapped against the wood. “Hey, I have an idea.” Her eyes were
suddenly wide, a smirk lighting across her rosy cheeks.

I groaned, knowing it involved me
somehow.

“
You should date her, Wes.”
She began to nod. “Yeah. If you could get her to fall in love, I
bet you could get her to snap out of this phase she’s in.” Her long
brown hair got caught in the wind, exposing her face. Her skin was
soft, her doe eyes filled with so much life. She was beautiful when
she was happy.

I laughed. “Stop teasing, Jane.”

Jane wasn’t laughing.

“
You were serious?” I felt
my heart continue to crumble. That was a brush off I couldn’t deny,
and for a moment, I stopped breathing.

“
Yeah, Wes. Come on, you’re
handsome. You could get any girl you wanted.”

“
Yeah…” my voice trailed
off but she didn’t notice.

Jane sensed my lack of enthusiasm. “Or maybe
we could find someone else to do it.”

She began to scan the crowd for eligible
boys with a desire to save a troubled mind—Emily’s mind—if there
even was such a guy. Then again, I guess I was that sort of guy,
but only when the troubled teen was Jane.

I watched her like a pathetic loser. There
were a million cute girls at this school, but everyone paled in
comparison to Jane. My hand began to hurt again, starting as a
tingle and slowly growing into a deep burn. I rubbed it with an
obvious grimace on my face.

It was then that Jane took my hand and began
to massage it. I instantly forgot about the pain, now focusing on
the way it felt to have her hand touching mine.

“
Acting up again?” She had
a concerned look on her face, and I allowed myself to pretend that
it was linked to love.

I nodded, my heart beating so fast that
words became hard to form.

She let go. “Do you think you’ll be okay for
wrestling this year?”

I loved to wrestle, just about as much as I
loved Jane. I liked that it kept me in shape. I always thought that
if I looked hot enough, she would like me more, but it didn’t seem
to work that way.

“
Yeah,” I tried to act
tough. “It’s nothing.” In truth, it began to hurt so bad that my
hand finally went numb. I quickly tried to think of an excuse to
leave, now feeling the burn creep up my arm. “I’m going to go get
another carton of milk. Need anything?”

Jane shook her head, looking down at the
table once more. “No, I may just go to the library. I don’t think I
can handle watching my sister doing her deeds first hand.”

I glanced back to where Jane’s sister was
still standing with the senior by the courts, just in time to see
him hand Emily something in an orange bottle and grab her ass. “I
see what you mean.” I winced as I said it, the pain now causing my
head to spin.

We both stood, parting ways as she headed to
the library and I headed to my car.

I needed to get out of here.

Max:

There she was.

If I had a heart beat, I’m
pretty sure it would have stopped. I leaned against the wall,
watching her as she sat at the table in the courtyard. I really
didn’t know why I felt so drawn to her, but I knew it was something
I couldn’t ignore. They had warned me of the danger in the
connection between what I was and what she was, but I ignored them.
With each passing year, my link to her only grew more apparent. I
understand now why they say it’s bad to indulge in the feeling. It
consumes you, becomes the only thing you can think
of—
love
.

I knew I’d broken the rules with Jane, but
something about her had been different. When I’d touched her soul,
something happened inside my own. I had to spare her despite the
shadows with which it left her.

She laughed, wind blowing through her brown
hair as it did when she was in her dreams. There, she was
confident, but here, I saw she was dwarfed and sad—a small spark of
the person I knew. I could show her how to live again—she could
show me.

My gaze skimmed across her form. She was
tall, her brown eyes just as wide and curious as they were when she
was a child, when they stared into mine. She had a constellation of
freckles on either cheek, mixing with the natural rose of her glow.
She always saw herself as a black swan, but to me, she was anything
but.

I licked my lips and ran a
hand through my hair. I knew it was dangerous to let her see me,
but something told me it was the right thing to do—it was finally
the right time to do it. She needed someone to comfort her. She
needed to know that
I
was here to comfort her. Someday, she would come to remember
me and what I’d done.

I focused on her chest, hearing her heart
beat—her breathing like a gentle wind in my ear. I was attuned to
her every movement, her every lungful of air, as though they were
my own to protect. We were bound by the sacrifice I’d made to save
her life. I relished the feeling of her existence inside me—a
feeling I’d long forgotten.

Jane stood then, and left the table. Her
friend left as well. He walked in my direction, his steps heavy and
his face creased with pain. I looked from him and back to her.

I clenched my fists and took a step forward,
wanting to follow her. I took one step before I froze. The sound of
her heart was suddenly silenced by a deep ringing in my ears. I
winced, hiding the pain as it made my head pound. The familiar
metallic smell of blood wafted into my nostrils, making me want to
cough.

I turned my attention back to her friend as
he drew close. I hid the pain from him, watching him as our eyes
locked. Both our paces slowed as we passed shoulder to shoulder,
staring each other down, knowing what each other had felt. My arm
began to ache as his soreness pulsed through me. I felt shame then,
and suffering.

He finally passed, and as
he got further away, the metallic smell faded along with the pain.
I leaned against a wall to regroup. I hadn’t expected that. It had
been years since I’d come across it. I’d thought that they were
gone from the area. It was then that I remembered what they had
left behind. I should have known better than to forget
them—forget
him
.

I turned and looked back as I rounded the
corner, our eyes meeting one last time before he slid away. I took
a deep breath, the bones in my back crackling as I stood straight.
He was young, I could tell from the pain, possibly still unaware of
the power inside him. I blinked a few times, already concerned.

I walked on, following Jane instead. As I
drew closer, her heart began to beat in my chest once more. I kept
my distance, though. Not yet.

Another friend was waiting for her.

Jane:

I walked across the lawn with the milk
carton in hand when someone grabbed me from around the corner,
yanking me into the hall. I knew who it was as soon as their hand
touched my skin, their foreseen death flashing across my mind. I
yelped, trying to hold my balance as the milk fell from my hand. It
hit the ground, splashing what was left onto the soles of my
Converse.

I looked up, a sour expression on my
face.

“
Hey, Jane!” Liz was
staring at me, her perfectly coiffed blond hair cascading down her
back. “Did you get that reading done?” She blinked. I watched her
long dark lashes flutter. They were so long I feared she’d blow me
away.

I tried to press the images of her laying
dead at the bottom of a lake out of my head. The story changed
every day, depending on what was happening in her life at the time.
The lake was a new one. I took note of it.

I swallowed hard, regrouping and rolling my
eyes. Liz was another friend I couldn’t seem to brush off. “Yeah. I
got it done.” I pulled my backpack from my back, rummaging through
its contents.

Liz was quite literally the only other
person I conversed with. A long time ago, we had been best friends.
We grew up having the same teachers through elementary school, but
come junior high, we had grown apart. She was a cheerleader, and
dubbed to be one of the best looking girls in school. She wore Dior
makeup, and tanned regularly, leaving me looking like a pale speck
of dust in comparison.

We hung out on weekends in private. She
never wanted to be seen with me at school anymore, but I didn’t
care. She made my weekend chores more invigorating as she followed
me around spouting gossip. I always figured I was the only one that
really listened to her. I knew it was the only reason we were still
friends, other than the fact I did her homework. At least she paid
me.

I handed her the pile of book reports she
was supposed to read and write about over the summer for 20th
Century Lit.

“
Great!
Here
,” she shoved a wad of money toward me—college fund. “Jane, I
don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have a friend like you,” she
squealed.

“
Fail?
” I muttered.

She didn’t seem to hear me. “So, this
Saturday… do you want to hang out?” She blinked, her blue eyes
glittering.

I tried to remember what
it was I’d had to do on Saturday. In fact, I began to hope that I
had something, just to avoid hanging out with her.
Who was I kidding?
I was
a loser. “Yeah, sure.”

“
Great!” she hissed,
jumping slightly. “I need your opinion on the new kid. I want to
try and reel that one in.” She winked, bringing one finger to her
chin in thought.

My thoughts then went back to the boy I saw
in the hall. “The new kid?” My brows were creased together,
suddenly interested.

“
Though,
he could use a
makeover,”
she added, ignoring my question. I looked at her
strangely, wondering how it was she had already caught up on all
the gossip by lunch.

“
The new
kid?”
I repeated, this time
louder.

She rolled her eyes and
began to swoon. “Yeah, the tall dark and
mysterious
one.” She bent down for
dramatic effect, as though suddenly weak in the knees. “Have you
seen him? Such a text book
hotty.
”