Boy from the Woods (9781311684776) (14 page)

“Depends on my
mother.
Just come over whenever you’re
ready.”

Julia hung up
and stared out the window. Just as she was about to put the phone
away, the thing beeped twice, signaling two incoming text
messages.

‘will i cu 2nite? ;) x mick’

‘what time r we meeting up 2nite? cya,
thorsten’

She chuckled
nervously. Wow, wasn’t she wildly popular all of a sudden. She
stared at the winky face in Michael’s message with a burning face.
What the hell – he was
teasing
her with the fact she
seemed to follow him wherever he went. He probably assumed she
would show up at O’Malley’s tonight, because she normally did on
Saturday nights.

“No, you
won’t
see me tonight, you tragically
deluded megalomaniac,” she muttered. “I won’t be there, and I’m not
gonna tell you where I
will
be.” She texted Thorsten to
tell him he was welcome to join her and Gaby at her place before
they went to Shamrock. That way they could all take the bus
together from Birkensiedlung.

‘gr8!
cu there :)’ she got back after a few
moments.

Only when she
got off the bus did she realize that her invitation to Thorsten was
mildly ill-timed if she wanted to sit down and talk to Gaby about
how to deal with Michael as a colleague. Harping on and on about
the guy who had brutally dumped her and yet somehow still had a
hold on her would rightly give Thorsten the impression he shouldn’t
bother making a move. She wasn’t sure what message she wanted to
put across. Was she secretly hoping he’d hit on her, or was she
just looking for a distraction?

With a frown
on her face, she opened the front door. The smell of fried potatoes
wafted into the hallway, making her mouth water.
She
popped her head around the kitchen door.
“Hi, Mom! Do you mind if Gaby and Thorsten join us for
dinner before we hit the town?”

“Fine with
me. But
you’ll
have to bike to the supermarket to get some
extra desserts. If no one tells me I have to cater for a mighty
host of friends, I can’t stock up.”

Julia grinned. “Will do.”

“Oh, and be sure to drop by Sabine’s on your
way back. Anne is still at the neighbors’, and I want her home for
dinner.”

Julia took a
ten-euro note from her mom’s purse and went outside to get her bike
from the shed. Whistling cheerfully, she cycled to Eichet in the
languid breeze of the summer evening. After doing the groceries,
Julia decided to take the forest path back home.

The plastic
bags dangling from the handlebars rustled due to the bumps in the
road. Julia slowed down. In the orange evening light breaking
through the canopy of the tree tops, she saw her spot up ahead. The
oak tree stood still and silent against the backdrop of the sunset
glow. She got off her bike and parked it against the
tree.

“Hello,
Mister Oak,” Julia whispered. She pressed her cheek against its
bark, hugging the trunk with both arms. Somehow it still felt
something had changed about this place, and when she looked up, she
spotted yellow leaves on the branches. That was very uncommon for
this time of year. Could it be her Hugging Tree was sick? That
would explain why she felt so different about this place lately –
maybe something really
had
changed. After all, trees had
to die some time, too.

She
sigh
ed morosely, letting go of the tree
to get her bike and cycle home. Suddenly, she was unreasonably
angry at the world for changing around her, without giving her the
means to stop it.

“Anne? Sabine?”
As she wheeled her bike through the gate of the
neighbors’ yard, Julia looked around. “Are you girls
here?”

Sabine’s
father came out.
“
Grüss Gott
.
Are you here to pick up your sister?
They’re still in the woods, I think. Did they
tell you they’re building a tree house?”

Julia nodded.
“Aren’t they getting a bit too fanatic about it? It’s close to
dinner time.”

“Well,
Sabine’s wearing a watch, but maybe they forgot about the
time.”

“I just
cycled through the forest, actually, but I didn’t see them
anywhere.
Where’s that tree house of
theirs?”

“I have no idea.
I was only allowed to come and have a look at it
after it’s done, they said,” Sabine’s father explained.

Just then,
Julia
heard laughter on the wind. Anne
and Sabine showed up, cycling down the road leading up to the
house.

“Aren’t you a
bit late?” she snapped at her sister when Anne entered the
front yard. “Mom’s waiting for you.”

Anne looked upset. “I’m
sorry.
I thought I’d make it before
dinner time.”

“Oh well, you’re here now. Let’s hurry up.
Gaby and Thorsten are joining us for dinner too.”

Anne’s eyes
lit up when she mentioned Thorsten’s name. Julia bit back a
chuckle. So she’d been right about her sister’s puppy love for
Sa
bine’s brother. That’s why she wanted
to give the forest prince blue eyes in her story. Smiling, she put
a hand on Anne’s shoulder, taking her inside to sit her down at the
kitchen table.

“Hell
o there!” Gaby bellowed when
she stepped into the house five minutes after Julia and Anne had
come back.
“It’s me!”

“I can hear
that!” Julia shouted back, quickly getting up from the table
and
dragging Gaby into the living room
area next to the kitchen. “Come talk with me for a minute,” she
hissed.

“Uhm, why? Aren’t we eating yet?”

“Yes, we are. I just wanted to say I also
invited Thorsten for dinner.”

“Wow, you go,
girl! I’m proud of you for being so straightforward.”

“Yeah,
thanks. The only problem is we can’t really talk about Michael with
him around.”

“You have a
point.” Gaby plonked her bag down on the couch and cocked her head
at Julia inquisitively.
“So what’s up, Jules?
Something’s bothering you, I can tell. Do you still have feelings
for Michael?
You can tell Agony Aunt
Gaby, okay?” She put a hand on Julia’s arm.

Julia shook
her head. “There is no ‘still’. I’m falling in love
again
.”
Her voice was so quiet Gaby had to bend forward to catch her
words.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I
understand now that I never really got to know him in school. I
never saw him for who he truly was – I invented my own stupid story
about Michael, in which he was an awesome guy blowing magical
glitter everywhere. But now… he’s just so
different
.”

Gaby gave her a pensive
look.
“You think he wants a second chance
because you saved him in the woods?”

“Maybe.”

“But
does
it mean he’s truly changed? Or is he
just feeling guilty?”

“I haven’t got the faintest clue.”

“Do you
really
want
to give him a second chance?”

Julia scowled at the floor. “Okay, I know
that’s stupid.”

Gaby worried
her lip and shrugged. “I don’t think you’re being stupid. I get it,
I do. Sorry I raised hell before when you mentioned Michael
still
intrigued you. All I want is for
you to be careful, but what’s stopping you if you want to shop
around a bit? Arrange a few more dates with Thorsten, see if he
isn’t a better choice, and in the meantime, hang out with Michael
at work to get to know
him
better. I still think he’s a
scumbag after the stories you told me about him, but hey, it’s your
life.
I’m not going to be a meddling
Molly.”

Julia exhaled. “Thanks,
Gab. That’s a huge relief, actually.
I
was afraid to bring it up again because you went all
banzai
about it before.”

“I get that.” Gaby grinned
wickedly.
“I can be quite
intimidating.”

At that
moment
the doorbell rang, and Gaby shoved
Julia playfully. “Guess that’s option number two on your
doorstep.”

Julia giggled
and walked over to the front door. When she swung it open, she
looked straight into Thorsten’s sparkling blue eyes. She swallowed.
Man, he was hot. She was
crazy
for not focusing on him a
bit more – he was gorgeous, interested, available, and he lived
next door. If there was a God, He was now surely banging His head
against the wall in frustration at her lack of
eagerness.

“Hey, good to
see you,” she greete
d him a bit
nervously. “Gaby’s already here; she’s my best friend.”

Gaby popped
into the hallway and introduced herself. The three of them went
into the kitchen and were soon chatting about school, vacation, and
their majors in college.

“I’ll be a
sophomore in s
ociology here at Salzburg
University,” Thorsten told them. “I did the first year in Graz, but
the transfer wasn’t a problem, fortunately.”

Julia froze
for a few seconds when she heard the name of the city Michael would
move to after summer. It was almost too good to be true – Michael
was leaving Salzburg, but Thorsten had come here to take his place.
It almost felt like the changing of the guard.

“Sociology
sounds interesting,” Gaby mumbled through a bite of potato. “I
consider
ed that, too. But I settled on
psychology in the end.”

“Just like
Axel,” Anne said casually. She was done eating and was coloring a
picture of a unicorn with the tip of her tongue sticking out in
concentration.

Julia cast
Gaby a sideways
glance and caught her
friend getting a bit red. “Yeah, we just can’t stay away from each
other.” Gaby put a hand over her heart in mock-infatuation. She
gulped down a large swig of soda too quickly, almost choking on it.
“By the way, what time are we leaving?”

Julia
snickered
.
“Half past
eight?” she suggested, shaking her head almost imperceptibly. How
could she
ever
have missed what was going on between her cousin
and her best friend? It was painfully clear, all of a sudden. She’d
have time to interrogate Gaby later on.

After dinner,
Julia and Gaby went upstairs to change and do their make-up, while
Anne hijacked Thorsten and lured him into the living room to sit
him down and watch Robin Hood with her. “They’re getting some new
inspiration for their three house,” Julia explained in front of her
dressing table. “Thorsten is
helping
Sabine and Anne build one in the forest.”

“
Really? Wow,
he’s so awesome he deserves a cape with a giant, embroidered T. I
mean, look at how he’s being the sweet-big-brother type around
Anne.”
Gaby winked at her.

“Yeah, yeah.
Just knock it off, all right? You sound like a
Thorsten commercial. I’m not blind, you know. I can see the guy
next door is a total catch.”

“Well,
if
you
don’t catch him, I just might swoop in and snatch him
instead.”

“No, you won’t. You…”
Julia stopped mid-sentence.
Gaby was
obviously interested in Axel, but of course she wasn’t supposed to
have picked up on that.

Gaby blinked
at her like a deer trapped in headlights.
“I…
what?”

Julia put away her
mascara.
“Nothing. Forget it.”

Her friend
put her hands
on her sides and cocked her
head. “Uh-uh, not so fast. What were you going to say?”

“Just
that Thorsten isn’t really your type,” Julia
mumbled.
“I hope.”

“Hah!
You think all that heavy mascara is obstructing my view,
sister? Even a blind bat can see he’s gorgeous,” Gaby scoffed,
sashaying toward the long mirror in the corner. Julia let out a
sigh. She would have to wait until Gaby brought up the topic of
Axel herself.

That evening,
Julia
enthused about her new job to her
friends. She’d quickly skipped over the part where Michael turned
out to be her co-worker – instead, she focused on the perks of the
job and her nice colleagues. “I was invited to one of the girls’
birthday party, actually,” she smiled. “Everybody’s being cool and
so friendly.”

“If only we
felt the same vibe at the riding school,” Gaby
gru
mbled. “Me and Tamara are ready
to
kill
those vapid airheads, forever rhapsodizing over horses and
ponies and everything having to do with them.”

Axel started laughing. “Well, don’t you girls
rave about horses?”

“Uhm,
no
.”

“But you like all that equestrian stuff,
right?”

Gaby let out
a long-suffering sigh. “There is a difference, Axe Effect, a clear
distinction between them and me. You can like horse-back riding as
an outdoor activity, because that’s cool, or you can live inside a
sugar-spun dream where horses are your biggest friends, you
communicate with them telepathically, you still have
My Little Pony
posters in your bedroom, and you secretly dream of a knight
on a white charger galloping into your life.”