Promise (6 page)

And now I had another mystery: Tristan. Who
was he and what was Mom's problem with him?

Chapter 4

I couldn't sleep. Mom and I didn't argue
frequently and I hated it when we did. She was my best friend, the
only person in the world I could trust. I stopped trying to make
friends in middle school, when everyone turned on everyone else so
easily. And I was an easy target—the perennial new kid who just
wasn't quite normal. Even if they didn't know my quirks yet, they
knew there was something different about me and were quick to poke
fun and spread rumors. But Mom was always there for me, with a
comforting hug and a shoulder to cry on when the kids were
especially hurtful. I could talk to her about anything. Well,
almost anything. Our history was the only taboo subject. Until
now.

And I really wanted, no,
needed
, to
talk to her about Tristan. My feelings for him were a first and I
wished I could talk to her to sort them out. It didn't look likely
that would ever happen. Especially after she'd brought up James—and
compared Tristan to him! Not that I hadn't thought about it before.
James
…I shivered under my comforter. Not with chills, but
with renewed anger.

It was the last time I'd shared anything with
anyone besides Mom. I should have known better, but I was fifteen
and naïve. I'd experienced enough kids taunting me, but James was
different…so I thought. He didn't give any particular bad vibes,
but I became more attuned to my sixth sense later…after
him…
because
of him.

He seemed genuinely interested and unusually
friendly and somehow finagled out of me nearly all of my secrets. I
wasn't ready for anything more than friendship, but that's not what
he had in mind. On the last day of school, I let him take me to a
party and learned that he only saw me as an insecure girl who would
respond to the first guy who paid any attention to her. His
mood—his whole demeanor—changed as if, by pushing his hand away
when he made his first move, I had hit some kind of switch.

"You're really rejecting me, Alexis?" he
seethed. "After I accepted you, you're rejecting
me
?"

I felt like I'd been slapped. I had
misunderstood every single kind gesture from the very first smile.
He just wanted in my pants. Blood rushed to my face with a mix of
embarrassment and anger. I stormed through the house, looking for
an escape.

"You thought I'd sleep with
you
?" he
shouted as he followed me out of the house, dozens of people
following him to witness my shame. "Did you think I'd feel sorry
for you because you're such a damn
freak
?"

I'd heard that one before. I could even get
over whatever damage his twisted words had done to my insignificant
reputation. But he continued and I spun around in disbelief as he
aired everything I'd confided. My body trembled. My hands balled
into fists. I could barely breathe. He ranted, sauntering closer to
me as he did.

"Your own dad didn't want you! Ditched you
before you were even born. Probably knew you'd be a freak. And your
mom…well, she's hot, but she must have been thirteen when she had
you. And with all the boyfriends…she's just a fucking
whore
!"

The next thing I knew, my right arm pulled
back and, like a slingshot, flew forward. My fist jammed into
James's nose with a crunch.

We moved the next day. Not because we ran
away from my humiliation or a potential lawsuit or battery charge.
But because when I hit James, he sort of flew about fifteen feet
backwards, bowling over a group of witnesses—I had more power in my
punch than was normal for a fifteen-year-old girl. Actually, more
power than a grown man. I wasn't usually so strong, not like Mom.
But I had never been so raging mad either.

That last betrayed trust set the final layer
of blocks in the emotional wall I built around myself. There had
been others like James, but I'd learned my lesson. I shut them down
without ever giving them a chance. I just couldn't take the risk of
that humiliation again. But now here I was, with another interested
guy. There was a difference, though: the feeling was mutual. I just
didn't know how smart that was.

***

Mom didn't say anything more about Tristan
for the next several days and neither did I. In fact, we hardly
spoke at all. I figured if I waited it out long enough, she'd come
around. Either that, or Tristan would lose interest soon enough and
it would no longer be an issue. That was more likely than
anything.

Thursday I went to campus for a team meeting.
I wanted to write—the first few chapters had poured themselves out
and I fell in love with my main characters—but with mid-terms next
week, I needed the extra help the study group would provide. That
hope was lost when I ran into Carlie in the bathroom right before
our meeting.

"Tell me if it's none of my business, but are
you and Tristan going out or something?" she asked while I washed
my hands and she primped.

"Um…no." I watched her reflection in the
mirror, trying to understand where she was going with it.
Does
she like him?

"Okay, good." Her deep-blue eyes showed
relief.

So that was a yes
. A tinge of jealousy
pricked my heart. But then she shocked me.

"Because he's kind of creepy, don't you
think?"

"
What
?" I suppressed a surprised
chuckle.
Tristan
creepy
?!

"I don't know what it is. I mean, yeah, he's
really hot. Drop-dead gorgeous, actually. But he's just…I don't
know…
different
, somehow."

I wanted to laugh. I was so concerned about
how unusual I was and she thought
he
was
different
.

"Something just bothers me about him," she
continued. "I think it's something about his eyes,
in
his
eyes."

Like the sparkle?
I like that
sparkle!

"He's always been really nice," I said in a
lame attempt to defend him.

"So you
do
like him?" She peered at
me, and then made a face. I didn't know what to make of it.

"Just as a friend," I lied.

"Oh, okay. Personally, I would stay away. He
just seems a little…dangerous. And you seem so nice." She smiled at
my reflection, then fluffed her short, blond curls with her
hands.

"Thanks for the, uh…heads up." I didn't know
what else to say, so I left for the group.

I had a hard time focusing on our studies
because I paid more attention to the interactions among our team
members. Everyone's body language seemed cool toward Tristan. They
didn't sit too close to him and held their bodies turned slightly
away. They talked to him and laughed at his jokes, but not quite as
warmly as they did with each other.
Do the others feel the same
way Carlie does?

I studied Tristan, trying to look at him with
a fresh perspective, trying to see what they might see. But I saw
and felt nothing…except his beauty, his laughter, the lovely sound
of his voice, the kind tone it held when he spoke to any of us, the
intelligent remarks he made when we actually discussed the exam,
the sparkle in his eyes when he smiled…. He caught me looking at
him and winked. And, yeah, there's that—the way my brain went
pleasantly woozy when he winked.

I barely remembered leaving the study group
and driving home, still pondering Carlie's remarks and everyone's
behavior toward Tristan. Carlie thought there was something
dangerous about him and she hardly knew him. Mom took one look at
him and didn't like him.
Am I missing something?

I knew I couldn't concentrate on studying or
writing when I arrived home, so I went for a walk. I meandered
along the streets without paying attention to where I went,
wondering why I just couldn't sense what everyone else seemed to
notice.
Are my alarms broken? Or is everyone else just wrong
about him?
I decided I had to believe my own intuition, my own
sixth sense. It had always been right before.

A familiar voice brought me out of my
internal wanderings.
His
voice. I looked up and, with mild
shock, found myself at the city park, bordering the north end of
the Cape's beach. It was a small park, with a playground to my left
and the beach just a few yards beyond it, a parking lot that could
hold about twenty cars to my right and basketball and tennis courts
straight ahead. An old, large banyan tree and pine and palm trees
shaded the area where I stood, sunlight filtering through their
leaves. A group of guys played basketball, talking smack to each
other, and Tristan was in the group. I hid behind the banyan tree
and watched.

I quickly realized there was only one other
person on Tristan's team and, to my surprise, it was Owen. I
shouldn't have been too surprised—half of the Cape's young set was
probably on that court. Although the teams weren't even, two
against five, it was obvious Tristan and Owen were winning. They
were good.
Really
good.

I watched for about five minutes when the
game ended. When no one on the other team wanted to play another
game, Tristan and Owen decided to play each other. Before they
started, Tristan took off his shirt and tossed it to the side of
the court.
Oh. My!
Naturally, I continued watching.

It said a lot about Tristan's playing ability
that it drew my attention away from his perfect chest and six-pack
abs. Now that no one else was around—or so they thought, they still
hadn't noticed me—Tristan and Owen really got into the game. They
seemed to be trying to one-up each other as they sped up and down
the court, now talking smack to each other. They were even better
than they let on when playing the other team. And Tristan was
noticeably better than Owen. It was unreal watching him. He was
always at the other end of the court faster than seemed possible.
His shots often made the ball a blur. And when he jumped…it was
inhumanly possible for anyone to jump that high or that far.
Sometimes Owen did something nearly as incredible.

Owen made a three-pointer and Tristan grabbed
the ball and shot it from under Owen's basket, the one closest to
me. I watched with amazement as the ball sailed across the court
and swished into the opposite net.

Then they both froze with their backs to
me.

The ball bounced toward the side of the
court. They ignored it as they turned in my direction, both in a
guarded stance.
Oops
. I hadn't realized I'd been creeping
closer, watching them in awe and now I was caught. When they saw
me, they both looked like
they'd
been caught doing something
wrong.

Tristan was the first to relax. A warm grin
lit his face.

"Alexis," he said, walking over to the
chain-link fence surrounding the court.

I felt myself relax, too. I had frozen when
they had. Since they knew I was there now, I took a few steps
closer.

"Hey, Tristan, Owen," I said, feeling
awkward.

"What's up?" Owen asked, now at the fence,
too.

"Um, nothing. I was just taking a walk and
saw you guys playing." I felt like an idiot now, like I'd been
caught spying or stalking.

"Been watching long?" Owen asked. He glanced
sideways at Tristan. Something in his tone made me feel even
guiltier.

"No, not really."

"Oh, too bad. 'Cause I was just smokin'
Tristan here," he said with a laugh, his tone lighter now.

"Ha! In your dreams, ya scrawny scarecrow,"
Tristan teased. I couldn't help my smile. Although his sleeveless
shirt proved Owen wasn't exactly scrawny, his blond hair stuck out
everywhere, so he did look kind of like a scarecrow.

"C'mon, moose!" Owen ran for the ball and
dribbled it between his legs. "We got a game to finish."

"You'll stay?" Tristan asked me.

"I should be heading home. It's a long way
back…."

"Please?" He smiled. "You can watch me make
hay of the scarecrow."

I laughed. "All right, for a while, I
guess."

I sat on a small stand of bleachers and
watched as they finished their game. It wasn't nearly as
fascinating as it had been earlier; they seemed to be holding back
now. When Tristan hit forty points, their cut-off, I hopped off the
bleachers, waved at them and headed for the beach, the quicker way
home. As I stepped onto the sand, I glanced over my shoulder. They
both walked in the opposite direction, toward the parking lot.

"You filthy slut!" a gruff voice snarled,
catching my attention.

A man dressed in grease-stained jeans and a
t-shirt, a younger woman in a bikini and a small girl, also in a
swimsuit, were coming off the beach. The man's hand gripped the
woman's upper arm as he dragged her toward the parking lot. Loaded
with a bag and beach chair, she obviously had a hard time keeping
up. The little girl, maybe six or seven, ran after them, stopping
frequently to pick up the plastic sand toys she kept dropping.

"Please, honey," the woman begged, "you're
hurting me."

"Good! You deserve it! You need to get some
damn clothes on!"

"But we're at the
beach
."

"Doesn't mean you need to be flauntin' all ya
got!"

I watched the ground as they crossed my path.
Though they were in public, I felt like an intruder. I pretended
not to notice the squabble as it heated up behind me. I picked up
my pace a bit, but the voices only became louder.

"Shut the hell up, bitch!" the man
yelled.

"Daddy,
no
!"

I automatically turned at the girl's scream.
The woman lay on the ground, staring wide-eyed at the man, who held
his fist in the air. The little girl dropped her toys and ran at
the man. And as soon as she was within arm's reach of her dad, the
woman was suddenly between them, taking the blow.