Chasing After Infinity (29 page)

chapter
twenty-five
AVENA
Back to Black
 

I dislike change. Semester two is almost beginning and I'm feeling mixed up with all the new classes and course changes. I'm enjoying the last of my first term. After lunch, my classes all melt into each other. Until calculus, I’m unfocused and tired and when Mrs.
Henridge
hands out the worksheets. All I know is that we’re supposed to work in partners.

Stacey Abrahams tries to reattach herself to Adrian and she’s flirting with him like crazy by flouncing her hair and stroking his arm. He whispers in her ear about something and as soon as she hears it, her expression turns black.

I stand in front of her as she turns. “This one is occupied,” I say.

With the most venomous look she can muster, Stacey flounces away, purposely bumping her bony shoulder against mine.

Adrian pulls me down next to him, grinning. “That was pretty sexy, seeing you stand up for your territory.”

I roll my eyes. “You just wanted to see a catfight. And don’t get it ahead of yourself; I just wanted something to annoy Stacey with. You were just in the way.”

“Me-
ow
,” Adrian says.

“Shut up. Now let’s work on this sheet.”

As the minutes pass in the class, we begin to finish more of the questions. “What’s the indefinite integral of sin x?” I ask him.

“
Mm,
let me think.” But Adrian sweeps my hair back, skimming the curve of my jaw. The warmth of his fingers sends a deep wave of desire in me. I move my head away, causing his thumb to graze along my neck, making me shiver.

By the time he pulls away, I’ve almost forgotten what I was asking.

Then I smack him on the shoulder. “Stop doing that! Focus on the questions.”

He looks amused. “I distract you?”

I scowl. “Kiss my ass.”

“I’d rather kiss your lips.”

Adrian pulls me closer and his mouth is seeking mine, insistent and full. Mrs.
Henridge
, from her desk, gives us a disapproving glare from under her glasses. Before we get sent out again, I pull myself away. The pressure of his lips on mine lingers.

The familiar feeling of something warm and
fizzy
in me comes and--

“Meet me in the parking lot after school,”
Adrian suddenly says and before I can say anything, he gets up. "See you later, monkey."

My earlier thoughts dissipate. I glower at him.
"
Avena
."
"
Alright, monkey," he nods at me and goes down the aisle, walking out the door, a wake of freshmen girl trailing after him.
Christ. I've forgotten how guys are such
asshats
sometimes.

***

After chemistry, I gather my stuff into my bag and shut the locker close. The blown-up picture of me with a drawn in moustache is still there. No matter how many times I’ve tried to pry it off, Adrian’s handiwork from September still stood strong.

I head to the back door parking lot, passing a gaggle of students, and find the devil himself sitting on the hood of his car, lighting a cigarette, watching the light snow falling in the breeze.

“Hey.”

Adrian cuts a glance over at me and gives me that lazy, enigmatic half-smile. He slides off the car, tossing the stub out. “Let’s go.”

“Where to?”
I say, opening the door of his Mercedes and climbing inside.

“My house.
I’ve got to pick some things up.”

It’s the first time that I’ve gone to his house before. He lives in the more upscale and southern part of the neighbourhood, where the sprawling midwestern estates rule the surrounding parks. Adrian’s house is the biggest on the block. As we ease into the sandstone driveway, I can’t help but gape at the elegance of the manor. Painted a muted red brown with white marble accents along the pillars, the house is wood-panelled with glass inserts with over-sized windows stretching to the second floor.

Adrian parks the car and turns the engine off as I continue to gaze at the house through the windshield. “Both my parents are off to work.” He gets out the car, slamming the door shut and I follow him into the porch of the manor.

He starts to search in his pockets and swears.
“
Godammit
, the keys.”
Adrian pauses and stares up at the house.
“No other way, huh?”

“What--” I start.

Then he finds a stone, a huge rock, in the garden surrounding the fuchsias and before I can react, he pulls his arm back and throws it at the nearest window. I gasp at the loud cracking noise and the shatter of the glass as it falls into sharp pieces. There’s a wide, gaping hole in the window. A smirk is on his face as he seems satisfied, gesturing me inside as he starts to climb inside the window.

“What the hell did you do that for?” I hiss, following him into the house.

Adrian shrugs. “They’ll be pissed, that’s all. But there’s nothing that money can’t fix.”

I shake my head at him. “This is your--”

He cuts me off. “None of this matters.”

Without saying anything more, he leads me upstairs where we end up in his bedroom. His room is gigantic, more like my entire living room than a bedroom, but it’s entirely cluttered and messy. Clothing is abandoned on the floor, pieces of paper are crunched on the table, the lamp is turned over, and the walls are stained.

Unable to find anything to sit on, I sit on his king-size bed, looking around.

“You’re allowed to do what you want. You’re allowed to break windows, make this place a mess.”

“They don’t give a shit about me so I don’t give a shit about their property.”

I sit back, quiet. I know a lot about parents who ignore you. “Adrian…”

Adrian presses a finger against my lips, stopping me. “Don’t move,” he says.

Then almost mesmerizing, I watch his lips come closer until they meet mine. We kiss softly and slow then it turns hard and fast. He pushes me back onto the mattress so that I’m beneath him and he tilts my head so that our mouths are merged together. His tongue brushes mine and it’s making me almost lose my mind. I kiss him more heatedly, unable to rein myself in. I want to taste him, consume him.

His hand resting on my thigh slowly rises onto my hip, moving under the hem of my shirt, and spreads across my stomach. My skin prickles as my restraint falters. I whimper as he lowers his warm lips to my neck, sucking the tender skin there on the base of my throat.

Adrian pulls my hips over; sliding me to him until my legs are straddling his waist and my body is aching. His mouth is slipping over mine, deep and frenzied, as he moans. There’s a look in his eyes that makes me shiver as I lie under him on the bed.

His mouth was delicious on mine, my breaths coming in sharp bursts. Adrian’s fingers dig at my hipbone as I struggle to take off his shirt, finally pulling it over his head.

My hands travel up his arms to squeeze his biceps under the shirt. Adrian helps me to pull it completely off and I can’t help but trace every hard curve, defined valley. I bite his warm skin near his flat stomach, tasting his salty sea smoothness. “Don’t,” he moans. He drags me up and pulls my shirt up and he breathes lightly, his skilful fingers unhooking my bra almost immediately.

That move makes me think of how experienced he is and how he’d probably done this a million times. The thought makes me jerk back from him as I pant.

“Going too fast?” Adrian whispers.

I shake my head but pull away from him, breathing. “I just don’t--” I stop and start again.

He pauses and slowly nods, moving his body from mine and lying beside me.

“You’re probably not used to taking it slow, huh?” I sound sarcastic even to my own ears.
“With your entire line of hook ups.”

He sighs. “That’s all history.” His jade green eyes meet mine as he looks at me. “I know I’ve had a past, pet. I can’t redo my actions but I can make up for them.”

“How?”
I say.

“By being here with you.”

And lying there, tangled in his plaid azure sheets, I close my eyes.

***

We stay there for hours, just talking instead of kissing like all those times before. We share our childhood memories, our saddest moments, our hopes, and dreams.

“I have no idea what I want to go into,” Adrian says as we lie there side-by-side. “I’ve never really given it much thought before. Everyone expects me to become like my adoptive dad but I’d rather saw off my arm before I turn into him.”

 
“Do you remember what your biological dad was like?” I say softly.

He shuts his eyes as if enduring a tide of pain, breathing out. “I don’t remember him at all.
Or my mom."

We keep nodding in and out, breathing in sync. Then he speaks up again. "I just remember this one time when it was lunchtime in third grade. My mom had packed my lunch in a Superman lunch box, you know, one of those stupid metal cases. What kind of third grader would have a fucking Superman lunch box?" He
laughs,
the sound harsh and bitter.

"And what happened?" I say quietly.

"The other kids didn't want to sit with me. I sat there myself through the entire lunch period, barely swallowing down my sandwich." I imagine a little Adrian sitting at a table alone, trying to appear cool, his eyes silently challenging anyone who looked his way. "When I came home, I flew into a rage. I threw the lunch box at the ground and stomped on it." His eyes grow distant and he shakes his head. "I was such a little shit."

I swallow. "Hey, you were small."

"But the thing was that even after all that, she didn't yell at me or anything. There was just this sad look in her eyes and I hated her for it--for not doing anything." Then he chuckles again. "Maybe that's why I grew up this way."

I lie against his chest, listening to the pitter-patter beat of his heart, my neck nestled between his
shoulderblades
. "Do you remember anything else about your parents?"

I feel his Adam's apple swallow. "I was three when they sent me away with nothing of theirs.”

I touch his hand and he doesn’t say anything. “When my mom died, I felt like there was nothing left of her too.”

“But you still have the memories.”

I guess he’s right. I smile as I recall something from when I was six. “I remember the time that my mom and I were talking. She told me to keep a time capsule with things that I found sacred so that years later, I would open it up and find memories there that I would’ve had forgotten.”

He sits up and looks at me. “We should do that.”

“Right now?”

Adrian hoists himself up from his bed, still shirtless, and reaches over to his dresser bottom level where he rummages inside. Then he gets an empty safe, dusting it off.

“We’ll collect stuff as we go along,” I say, grinning.

“One of us should open this after five
years
pass,” Adrian says.
“Just for the hell of it.
So we can look back on our crazy high school experience.”

He smiles slyly.
“And how we met each other.”

“I won’t want to relieve it all over again,” I protest, laughing as he kisses me beneath him. “Oomph, you’re on my arm, idiot.”

Adrian draws me closer, shifting his weight. “I’m glad that vase didn’t kill you.”

“Yeah, me too,” I reply, kissing him back.
“Asshole.”

Then I grab the pillow behind his back and smack his head with it.

"Hey, what was that for?"

"That's for the time you dumped juice all over my head."

I throw another pillow at him and he sits up, deflecting it and throwing another one at me. "Hey!" I laugh and try to smother him with pillows.

Then we both freeze as there’s the crunching sound of a car pulling into the driveway. “My dad’s back from work,” he mutters, getting off me and pulling on his shirt. I try to smooth my hair and sit up on his bed.

“I should probably go,” I say to him.

“No, stay here.”

Adrian pulls open the door, closing it behind him until just a crack is open, and I see him heading downstairs. I get up and start to follow him.

I strain my ears, trying to hear them. The arguing voices get louder the more I go down the stairs until I reach the hallway.

Adrian’s adoptive father is standing in the doorway, looking purple-faced. He’s good-looking in a kind of clean-cut, all-American dad kind of way, wearing a golf shirt and loafers. Adrian is staying quiet.

“You broke the goddamn window!” His father was yelling at him. “We already have to fix the faucet and now this?”

“I couldn’t get in,” Adrian replies curtly.

“Well, just wait a couple of hours until I come back! Jesus Christ,” he says, shaking his head, glaring.