Fractured Light (12 page)

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. You’re totally avoiding people again.”

I suddenly got angry. Who was May to tell me how to live my life? “I’m only doing what you do, but instead of having a million friends, all of whom you keep at a distance, I choose to have none. We both have our ways of protecting ourselves. This is mine.”

May’s eyes moved past me, and she nodded slowly. “Right. See you then.” She walked off without looking back.

My shoulders sagged. I felt horrible the rest of the day.

*     *     *     *     *

At about 7:30 that night, the doorbell rang. I pushed my chair back from the dining table and my math homework, which I was still failing, and opened the front door.

Christian stood in the doorway with a bouquet of yellow roses. “Hi, I hope this is a good time.”

“Um, it’s fine. What’s up?” I kept one arm on the door, only letting it open so far.

“These are for you.” He thrust the flowers toward me.

My stomach began to ache again, and I almost couldn’t bear it. “They’re beautiful, thank you. But why?”

“I feel bad we haven’t hung out, and I can’t help feeling like I did something wrong.”

I shook my head. “You didn’t do anything wrong, seriously.”

“Can I come in and talk?”

While I hesitated, the infamous angel and devil duo appeared on each of my shoulders.

“Let him in,” the angel said. “He brought you flowers.” The little devil snorted, “Flowers. Ha! He abandoned you. You can’t count on anyone but yourself.”

“Ah, come on. The guy said he was sorry,” the angel retorted.

“Llona?” Christian asked.

The angel and devil disappeared.

I sighed and opened the door. “Come on in.” Somewhere in the distance, I heard my imaginary devil curse.

“Thanks,” Christian said.

“Have a seat.”

He dropped onto the sofa. “I’m not sure what happened or what I did, but I want you to know I’m sorry. Maybe you felt we were getting too serious or something, and maybe we were, I don’t know. But what I do know is I miss you. I want to be friends. Can we at least be that?”

“I don’t make a good friend.”

“Let me be the judge of that.”

“I like to be alone.”

Christian laughed. “Not someone like you. You were born to make people happy.”

There he goes again. “You don’t know what I was born to do. Don’t act like you know me.”

He was silent for a moment. “Fine. Can we just hang out once in awhile?”

“Why, Christian? I’ve completely blown you off. Why would you still want to hang out with me?”

He stared straight into my eyes with an intensity I could feel and said, “You’re like no one I’ve ever met before.”

“That could be a bad thing.”

“In your case, it’s not. Friends?”

I shrugged, too emotionally exhausted to care anymore.

We talked a little longer before he finally left. I felt much better about me and Christian (we could be friends, right?), but I still didn’t feel good about what I’d said to May. Before I went to bed, I dialed her number.

“What?” she said.

I took a deep breath. “Sorry about what I said earlier. I didn’t mean it. I’ve just been trying to figure out where I belong. Does that even make sense?”

She paused before saying, “Of course it does, but just try to remember who your real friends are. People like us need to stick together.”

This jolted me. This was the first time she’d hinted at what we knew about each other. “Right. Sure. Anyway, I really am sorry.”

“No problem. I have my bad days too. Just let me know when you want to hang out.”

“Will do. Thanks and have a good night.” I hung up.

Now I felt better.

*     *     *     *     *

The next day at lunch, I sat by myself eating a barely warm slice of pizza.

“You missed book club last night.”

I looked up. Matt stood over me, holding a tray of food.

“I know, I’m sorry. I’ll try to come next time.”

“Can I eat with you?”

“I guess.”

He slid in next to me and pulled out a book from his backpack. “We’re reading this for next month.”

I looked down at a book titled
1984
by George orwell. “I’ve been wanting to read that,” I said.

“It’s good. I’m almost done.”

And that was the gist of our conversation. He said nothing else until the bell rang and then said good-bye. It was nice being around Matt. He didn’t seem to have a care in the world, and he didn’t feel the need to find out more about me. It was refreshing.

The next day Matt appeared again at lunch. This time he didn’t ask if he could sit by me, he just did. Our conversation once again consisted of a few syllables while we both ate and read.

On the third day, Christian found us. He said to Matt, “I’m Christian. I don’t think we’ve met.”

“I’m Matt.” They shook hands.

“We’re in a book club together,” I volunteered.

“Oh yeah? What book are you reading?”

“I doubt you’d know it,” Matt said, closing his book.

“I might.”

“
1984
.”

Christian took it from him and examined it. “George orwell. It’s an interesting book. I love the way it shows how easily humans can be controlled by fear from an obviously psycho government. I hope I never become that weak.”

Matt’s eyebrows raised. “Very true. Maybe you should join our book club?”

Christian’s eyes moved to mine. “No. I better be going. Just wanted to say hi.” He stood up. “I’ll call you later, Llona.”

I nodded.

After he left, Matt said. “He’s different.”

“Because he’s read
1984
?”

“No, but it does show football isn’t everything to him. Not only that, but most guys would have hung around, throwing insults at me because they think I’m hitting on you or something. He was very cool about it.”

I set my book down. “How come you are so different from everyone else?”

“How do you mean?”

“You come to high school, but you don’t seem to care about any of it. It’s not like you act above us or anything, you just act like we don’t exist, but in a sophisticated way, know what I mean?” I suddenly felt very stupid.

Matt laughed. “I’m not sure I do, but see all this?” He waved his fork around the room. “None of this means anything in the real world. All high school is, is an exaggerated adult world, like a reality TV show. It’s as if everyone’s lost their ability to reason. Every event, whether good or bad, is emotionally intensified. For example,” he pointed across the room to a group of girls. “See that girl over there? The one with the red shirt?”

I nodded.

“Last week I heard her crying to her friends about how a stylist had cut her hair too short. She almost didn’t come to school because she was so traumatized by the event. Now give this girl fifteen years and three kids, a butchered hair cut would be the least of her worries.” Matt shoved a bite of food into his mouth. “Unless of course she becomes like one of those people who don’t ever let go of their high school glory days. Take my aunt for example. She still shops in the junior clothing section and thinks it’s a bad day if she hasn’t heard a juicy piece of gossip. She hates anyone who’s overweight, when secretly I think she’s bulimic. So you see, for the majority of people, high school is just a training ground for real life. Some of us learn from it and take the best with us, while others of us of get trapped, thinking there will never be anything better.”

I stared at him, mouth open. “How old are you?”

He laughed. “I know I sound like an eighty-year-old—the curse of having two parents who are college professors. They’ve helped me see the world in a different light.”

“High school’s not all that bad,” I said. “No, of course not. High school life is necessary.”

“You make it sound so boring. There is fun to be had in high school: sport games, parties, hanging out.”

“I can’t see what I would learn from those things so I just don’t go.”

“But it’s not about learning anything. It’s just about having a good time.” It seemed weird that me of all people was giving someone else a pep talk on being social. I’m such a hypocrite.

He shoved a french fry into his mouth as he pondered my words. “Maybe you’re right. Isn’t there a football game Friday night?”

“Yes,” I answered, thinking immediately of Christian.

“Why don’t we go?”

“Okay, deal.” One little game wouldn’t hurt.

When Friday came, I almost cancelled with Matt. There was no moon, and I was feeling extremely weak and exhausted, but when I found out Jake wanted me to go out to dinner with Heidi and him, I decided to keep my plans. The last thing I wanted was to be around a lovey-dovey couple.

I met Matt at the game and as we sat down on the bleachers, I snuck a peek at him. Like always, he was very cute, wearing baggy Levis and a plain red T-shirt. I wondered why I wasn’t attracted to him that way. Maybe it was because he didn’t seem to be attracted to me. We were just two friends hanging out, no motives.

I knew immediately why I wasn’t attracted to Matt as soon as we started watching the game. The moment I saw Christian, my heart leapt within my chest. I loved to watch him play. His movements were quick and his passes flawless. When our team scored, I stood up to cheer with everyone else, but after only a few seconds I had to sit back down.

“What’s up?” Matt asked me.

“Nothing, just feeling a little light-headed.”

“Do you want me to take you home?”

“No,” I said, a little too quickly. I wanted to watch Christian as much as possible. A couple of times during the game, I noticed Christian look our way. I smiled but wasn’t sure if he saw me because he didn’t smile back.

When the game was almost over, Matt leaned over and asked, “Are you ready for Mr. Steele’s midterm on Monday?”

“Midterm?” I didn’t mean to stare, but I honestly had no idea what he was talking about.

“Yeah, his big test. If you don’t get a passing grade, he’ll fail you for the whole semester.”

I shook my head. “I’m dead.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t know. All we did in class today was review for it. At least that’s what we did in ours. Maybe you did something different.”

“I wouldn’t know,” I mumbled.

“What?”

I stood up. “I’ll be right back. I have to go get my math book so I can study this weekend.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“No, watch the game. I’ll hurry.” I carefully stepped down the bleachers. Of course if I did fall, maybe I’d break my leg and could miss the test.

I moved deathly slow across the lawn toward the school. I hated walking in the dark when the moon wasn’t out. Gratefully, the stadium provided just enough light for me to see my next step, preventing me from falling on face.

I entered the front doors and, as quickly as possible, maneuvered my way around the half-lit school until I found my locker. I retrieved my math book and was about to close the door when I heard laughter. I held still and focused my hearing, but jumped when something smashed against what sounded like lockers.

More laughter.

I moved to where I could peer around the corner to see what was going on. On the other end of the hall three guys walked in my direction. And one of them was carrying a bat.

I
PRESSED MY BACK AGAINST THE WALL. GREAT, JUST WHAT I
need. I moved back down the short hallway to the doors. Very quietly, I pushed on the bar that normally opened, but what I suspected turned out to be true. The door was locked. I would have to go back out the main entrance, past the wanna-be gangsters.

“If we can’t beat them on the field,” I heard one of the boys say, “We’ll at least make sure they remember us.” Another crashing sound. My nerves jumped as if I’d been hit instead of the metal lockers.