Split (8 page)

“Like what?”

“He doesn’t have horns or anything.”

“Jace.” Her voice has gone soft and sympathetic.

Pity.
Just what I need
.

“It’s all right to miss him,” she says.

“Yeah, right. What’s to miss? The name-calling, the heavy hitting?”

“I mean the times when he wasn’t mad.”

I pick at the basil with my fork and squeeze my teeth together. It’s not really all right, is it? I mean, who would miss that bastard? Shouldn’t I hate him, just simple, pure hatred? Shouldn’t I write him a thank-you note for getting me out of there, for not wanting me around anymore?

“It isn’t your fault,” she says.

You think? Yeah, lady, I’m well aware
. An unwanted image flashes: skin bulging through fingers as the grip around her neck tightens.

“Do you think that people can change? I sort of do,” I say.
Or at least, I hope so
.

“You can’t change him. Only he can make that decision.”

“I know that. But”—I pause and steady my voice so it comes out casual, not as if her answer will control how fast my heart is beating—“people can change. Don’t you think?”

She stands up and begins to pile the pans and bowls we sullied in the sink.

“Maybe,” she says, but she means no.

I lose my appetite again and push the food away. She puts a dish down and stops, as if she’s just thought of something else.

“Well, maybe sometimes. If they work hard enough.”

Like if they change cities, change their name, and declare a bastard-no-longer pledge? Is that enough? I want to ask. Instead, I thank her for the dinner and go.

chapter 12

“h
ey, Dakota
. Have you got a minute?” I’ve looked at her work schedule and know that she gets off now.

We walk out from behind the counter and head toward the café in the back. Her hair goes from blue-black to black as we step from the fluorescents into the low-light spot-light look. After we get our drinks, we find a two-person table and sit down, setting our cups on the mosaic tabletop.

“What’s the occasion … sir?” she asks.

“Mouth off at me now, and you won’t get your present.”

“My what?” She sips her drink, and I notice a tawny kiss mark on her straw.

I unzip my backpack and hand her the little bag. I lean on my elbows toward her to get a good view of her reaction.

“What’s this?”

She pulls the bow’s tail until the small green ribbon uncurls and the handles spring apart. She pulls out a rolled-up picture, and I get a little-gasp-and-a-wide-eyed response as she looks at it. I Photoshopped the picture I took of her that first day and added another image, from the art fair: a bolt of raw silk that curtained one of the booths. A breeze had made it swing when I snapped the shot. I cropped her face and enlarged it. Her lips are puckered, and I shopped in breath toward the material, making it look as if she’s blowing the curtain. It’s one of my better ones.

“How did you do this?” she asks.

“I just wanted to thank you for getting me this job.”

She brushes her hair behind her ear. “I don’t know what to say.”

I grin at her. “See, right there. That makes it all worth it.”

She almost laughs and then says, “Oh, you’re all charms and flattery, aren’t you?”

She gives my hand a squeeze, and I know this is my moment to ask her out. But I end up pulling a Christian fish-mouth. Open and close.

Before she goes, she says thanks again and kisses my cheek. I inhale her smell, close my eyes, and keep my bastard mouth shut. The last thing I should do is date a girl I like.

When I get home, the temptations haven’t stopped. Three unopened e-mails from Lauren lurk in my inbox. Bold print. Waiting.

RE: Where the hell are you, coward?
RE: I hate you. Call me.
RE: You owe me, bastard.

I should delete them, like I did with the first one, and fling Lauren’s e-mails into oblivion. Instead, I gaze at her RE: lines.

Just a click and I could read the words that she wrote, considered, rewrote, and then sent. She is careful in e-mails, preferring phone or face-to-face. Edward says she avoids e-mail trails. Gives her deniability. I try distracting myself by counting the days till Thanksgiving, but it only takes about three seconds to confirm what I already know—sixty-two days.

I begin to bargain with myself: If I promise not to ask Dakota out, can I read Lauren’s e-mails? If I don’t reply to them ever, can I ask Dakota out?

I force my chair back, the wheels protesting over the thick carpet. I walk into the kitchen and open the fridge door. Cold air trickles out. There’s nothing to eat, unless you consider mushrooms edible. I peek at the screen though the kitchen doorway. Her RE: lines are like the goddamn Greek sirens.

I could silence them if only I had a distraction, but Christian’s at work; I already tried calling Dakota; there’s no television in this place (God help me); and I can’t afford to download any music or movies. Hell, I can’t even drive aimlessly since Christian’s car died (big surprise) and I let him use mine.

I listen to the white noise of rain pattering on the roof while my gaze lingers on the last RE: line.

You owe me, bastard.

I do owe her, but
what
do I owe her? An answer, or as much distance as I can put between us?

Maybe Mirriam is home. I walk down the hall and knock, but after waiting a century, I know she’s not. I start walking the steps. Downstairs, turn around, climb back upstairs.

Lauren would not endorse my bastard-no-longer pledge. She would laugh and say, “But without your edge, you’re not nearly so hot,” and kiss me, stealing away any resolve.

Up: step, step, step.

Lauren’s probably hanging with Edward.
They’re watching a movie in her den with her enormous screen and surround sound, and she’s leaning against him while he holds her homemade cheesy popcorn
.

Unwanted images flash through my head: Q-tips trapped in glass on the counter, stumbling on high heels, skin bulging between fingers as the grip tightened.

When I return to the apartment, I hit the Send/ Receive button again and
ding
, an e-mail pops up. From Lauren.

RE: Warrant for your arrest?

I read it over and over before I press the Off button, and the screen goes black, erased. I pace over to the window. When my face is reflected, I turn off the lights, and then return to my spot. A bolt of lightning startles the room alive, and I start counting: one, two, three.
Don’t think about that last night in Chicago at Starbucks
. Thunder breaks, and the window trembles under my fingers.
Don’t think about Lauren
.

I press my fingers against the cold glass and trace the path of a raindrop.
Don’t think
.

I close my eyes and try to stop the memory, as if I could scrabble away from it; try to find my brain’s Record Over button—anything. But somewhere in my gray matter, a Play button is pressed and the memory rolls….

We were sitting at a Starbucks table, a venti decaf standing next to my
Complete Works of Shakespeare
. The dark outside had turned the windows into pseudo-mirrors. I studied the picture reflected in the window, thinking about how it would translate in a photograph: a barista in the background, scrubbing a spot off the counter; in the foreground, I sat surrounded by my friends—Edward leaning back in his seat, his scuffed sneaker saving Lauren’s empty chair, which was waiting between us; Marisa perched across from me, sipping her herbal tea with the lid off, leaving the steam to curl into specters. I was wondering whether my own double-lined reflection would look artistic or just blurry when Marisa caught my attention. She flipped her long black bangs out of her eyes, leaned forward onto her bony elbows, and looked at me through thickly mascaraed lashes.

“I’m ready,” she said.

Is she honestly flirting with me?
I thought. Lauren returned to the table with another cup of coffee, and I grabbed her hand and pulled her down on my lap. Had to draw the boundaries.

Marisa straightened up off her elbows and sat back. Lauren tore open two yellow packages of Splenda. The grains cascaded into her coffee, chasing both sugars already in the cup.

Edward looked from the cup to her face. “Lauren, you do realize that’s the equivalent of like six sugars?”

“Sugar, chocolate, and coffee—my healthy addictions,” she said, reciting a hard and fast rule she’d created in response to her mother, the recovering alcoholic who is not so consistent about the recovery part.

“What’s healthy about that?” Edward asked.

Lauren tensed up. I felt her butt muscles stiffen against my quads. She had kept her mom’s problem pretty quiet. It was something I only learned about, during this, our third on-off stint.

“What’s healthy about it is not to ask,” I said.

Her butt softened, and she kissed the top of my head. “I’m adding you to the short list.”

I squeezed her hand.

“Oh God,” said Marisa. “Enough of the lovey-dovey. Quiz me, Jace.”

I tried to let go of Lauren’s hand, but she squeezed tight.

I thought about a good quote. “‘I am in blood stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er.’”

“Hamlet,”
Marisa said. She leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Macbeth.”

“Hamlet.”
Marisa sat up again.

I shook my head and stirred Lauren’s coffee for her.

“Not a chance, Marisa,” Lauren said. “Jace is the hottest nerd we know. He’s always right.”

I glanced at her and smiled vaguely. We both knew Lauren wasn’t book smart, but she was smart in a different way. She knew people, when to play and when to soften; she saw flaws and strengths that were barely perceptible to everyone else and could spout off unpredictable, totally sexy flashes of insights into relationships. She was the only person I would defer to since I had learned she was right most of the time, and I was the only person she would defer to. Which made for some pretty funny conversations.

“He’s not right this time,” Marisa said. “Remember, I
played
Ophelia.”

“You played one scene, and it was like a hundred years ago,” Lauren said.

I glanced at Edward, and he rolled his eyes. We had both seen them spat before. Their warmups were lame, their finishes exhausting.

“Warped sense of time. Try two years ago,” Marisa said.

“What … ever.”

I began flicking the onion-skin pages loudly, searching for
Macbeth
.

Lauren bounced in my lap. “Go, Jace, go.”

“Lauren, you should lay off the caffeine,” Marisa said.

“Caffeine doesn’t affect me.”

She had always claimed that nothing could alter her sleeping schedule, but after the night her parents were gone and I got to stay, I knew better. That girl never slept. Whenever I had woken up (which was often, stuffed on that twin bed), I had seen her eyes reflecting the street-lamps. Cat-night eyes.

I glanced up at her and was about to say as much when she leaned down and kissed me. Warmth spread deep into my torso.

In the reflection, I saw Edward glare at her, his chin stuck out in a deep sulk, until she lifted herself off me and took her former seat.

Odd
.

I put my finger back in the book, found the quote, and pushed the book around to Marisa. “And it’s in … ?”

“Macbeth.”
She slumped back and glanced at Edward for his usual consolation.

But he ignored her, watching Lauren instead.

Odder
.

Lauren let out a delighted shriek, leaned over, and stuck her mouth on mine again. This time I kept my eyes open and watched Edward, thinking
Not him; no way; they don’t even like each other
, but he winced when our lips made contact.

When Lauren drew back, she turned away from me. I’m sure she thought I couldn’t see her, but in the glass, I watched her mouth at Edward,
Sorry
.

Fightology Lesson #5: Anger comes in all forms: a slow burn; relentless, constant flames; or a hot flash, popping here and there. It can lie in wait, and you think you’ve forgiven, you think you’ve doused it with trust, but give it a sudden burst of oxygen and—backdraft.

I grabbed Lauren’s arm and hauled her out of the seat.

“Oooh,” she said, clambering to keep up, “Was the kiss that good?”

I yanked her out the door. The September air streaked into my lungs, its cold burning my throat. Lauren wrenched her arm free and waved at Marisa through the window.

“Can we do this somewhere else?” she muttered through clenched teeth and a forced smile.

She grabbed my hand and led me around the corner. She glanced up and down the street. Empty. Then she looked at me, her face schooled into blankness.

She shrugged a shoulder. “What?”

“Is that all you have to say? Not an ‘I’m sorry’? Not a denial? You were better at this last time. Scratch that—the last two times.”

A car appeared from around the corner, and its headlights swung over her. When the lights caught her eyes, it turned them golden. Cat-night eyes.

After the car passed us, she lifted her eyebrows and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re too suspicious. Where’s your trust?”

“In bed with Edward.”

She looked down into her chest and chuckled to herself—a private joke.

Backdraft.

Now in Christian’s apartment, I close my eyes and try to will the memory to stop, as if I could prevent the blister in my brain from bursting, now that I have pricked it.

I try to imagine that I didn’t call her a bitch, that she didn’t say,
What, I should let you flirt with Marisa nonstop?
I try to imagine that my father’s litany of names didn’t spew from my mouth like a song I’ve listened to too much; I try to imagine that she didn’t scream back,
Shut up! Stop acting like what we have is so special. It’s not as if we’ve found the real deal. It’s not like this is true love
.

But I can’t imagine it any other way. For once, my imagination, my fail-safe, has failed. I stop fighting the memory and let it transport me, like Dorothy’s tornado….

I’m back in the street, rolling my fingers into a fist and slamming it into her face. My knuckles bang against her cheekbone. Lauren falls backward from the impact, and I hear her head
thunk
against the brick wall. A grunt pops from her throat. Her high heels can’t find a hold, and she is on her way down. My hand clamps around her neck, and her body weight hangs in my grip until she manages to scuttle her feet under her. She claws at my wrist.

I squeeze.

I’m watching her skin bulging between my fingers when my brain catches up.

Cold lightning strikes down my spine.

Oh God, what am I doing?

I freeze, and I feel her nails digging into my skin. I let her go. She crashes to the cement in a heap of ragged breaths.

I go down with her, putting one palm on the cold pavement and the other on her back.

“Lauren, Lauren. Oh God.” The words rush out. Someone has opened a tap, and shame pools onto the cement around us. “You’ve got to know I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’d never hurt you.”

But I just have.

She drags in breath. She pushes up, her weight on her hands, her back curved, her hair shielding her face. I fully expect her to toss her head and slap me or to lean over and bite a piece out of me, but instead I watch her shoulders jerk up and down as she sobs. This isn’t Lauren’s MO—Lauren Elizabeth Silver does not cry.