The Academy - Introductions (13 page)

I knew he said not to but I couldn’t resist wanting to get
a closer look of the belts and posters on the wall. There was his name, Nathan
Griffin, etched into those gold plates with the various degrees of rank that I
didn’t quite understand. There was a framed newspaper clipping with his name on
it, too, and a picture of a much younger looking Nathan holding up a trophy. I
sensed him stepping up behind me, looking at what I was looking at. “You do
karate?” I asked.

“Kind of.”

I turned to face him, blinking, not understanding.

“It’s Jujitsu. And Taekwondo. And some other martial arts.
Karate is just a different style.”

“Oh,” I said. “That’s really cool.”

His face softened and he smiled at me. “I know.” He crossed
the room to a small closet that protruded from the rear wall. He searched the
shelves until he found what he was looking for and turned around. “Let me see
that bruise again,” he said, coming back across the floor.

I stepped back out onto the pavement and he turned off the
light, closing the door. He turned to me and I lifted the shirt to reveal the
bruise. He held a crumpled white tube in his hand. He opened the top and
squirted out a white cream onto his palm. He pressed his fingers to the bruise
to lather it into my skin.

“What is this?” An acidic medicine smell made me crinkle my
nose. The cream was greasy and while he was delicate as he rubbed, it did hurt
as he touched me. Part of me wondered if it was because I was super sensitive
that he was a boy I still didn’t know well and he was touching a part of me
that made me shiver.

“Arnica cream. It’s supposed to help with bruising and sore
muscles.” He dipped his fingers down into the shorts a little to cover a little
more of the area, then wiped his hand off on his shorts and closed the cap on
the tube. He handed the tube to me. “Put this on twice a day until it starts to
turn green.”

I took the bottle and held it to my chest. “Thank you.”

He was standing close to me. His blue eyes fixed on mine.
“You’re pretty nice for a girl.”

I half choked. “What?”

“You know,” he said, waving his hand around his head, being
dismissive. “Girls are all ‘give me that’ and usually want to get all cute on
the couch and not get their hair wet and... yeah, indoor types.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “Girls don’t like wet hair?”

He laughed. “You’re totally missing the point.”

“Probably because I’m a girl.” I don’t know why but I felt
defensive about being separated from other girls. Normal girls don’t like to
swim?

He rolled his eyes, waving his hand again in the air but
laughed. An alarm noise sounded nearby and he raced over to where he had
dropped his shirt near the pool. He pulled from the bundle a cell phone and
answered it. I was trying not to overhear the conversation but it was difficult
not to. “Yeah? No, I was just swimming with Sang. She’s the... oh. You know
her?” He turned, looking at me with his eyebrow raised as he listened. “Yeah,
okay. We’ll come over.” He hung up.

I swallowed.
Uh oh
. That had to be Kota or one of
the other guys. So they knew each other?

He check the sports watch at his wrist. “Have to be
somewhere?”

I considered what I should say. Should I lie and go home?
No, I still had to ensure they didn’t try calling. I still wasn’t sure how to
explain what happened to my voice or why they couldn’t do something as normal
as call me. I shook my head.

Nathan’s head tilted toward the house. “Let’s get dressed.
How’d you meet Kota?”

“Long story.”

He smiled. “Tell me on the way to his house.”

I stood with Nathan on Kota’s front porch. My hair was
still wet and my jeans were still kind of dirty. I was grateful they were fully
dry. I pulled my hair out of the mess on top of my head, untangling the clip. I
held the clip with my teeth and twisted my hair again, replacing the clip in a
quick movement. Drips fell on my neck as the tips of my hair spilled out from
the top of the clip.

Nathan watched me as I did it. “Looks like shit,” he said
with a teasing grin.

I made a face at him just as Jessica opened the door. She
looked cute in a little pink flower dress. She peered out at us, took one look
at Nathan, turned bright red and rushed away from the door, leaving it hanging
open.

I lifted an eyebrow and turned toward him.

He looked perplexed at me and shrugged his shoulders. “She
caught me sparring with a friend one day. It probably looked like I beat him up
pretty bad. I heard Victor tell her one day if she didn’t get straight A’s like
her brother, I’d come over and do the same thing to her.”

I was still laughing when Kota came to the door.

“There you are,” he said. He wore Calvin Klein jeans and a
short sleeve, white dress shirt, buttoned to his neck. His slid his glasses up
further on his nose, looking relieved. “What happened to you?”

I blinked at him. “You were looking for me?” I whispered.

His eyes focused on me. “What?”

“Her voice is gone,” Nathan said. “She can’t talk.”

Kota’s expression changed, his eyebrow raised. “It was fine
yesterday. What happened?” His eyes were intense on me.

My heart was throbbing so hard that I wasn’t sure how to
react. My lips moved but I couldn’t figure out what to say.

He frowned. “I almost went over to your house. I wasn’t
sure how to reach you. I tried walking by just in case you happened to look
out. I wondered if you were in trouble.”

I pushed a finger toward my lower lip. “Sorry,” I
whispered. I wasn’t sure what else to say.

“What’s the problem?” Nathan asked, shifting on his feet
and looking between me and Kota. “What’s going on?”

Kota fumbled with the button at the collar of his shirt.
“Well, it’s something we’ve got to figure out. Come on in. I’ll look at your
throat.”

My hand fluttered to my throat, touching delicately at the
dip at the base. “It’s not a problem,” I whispered, forcing a smile. The last
thing I wanted was this sort of complication. It was my responsibility to act
as a barrier between my parents and anyone I met. If I was going to keep any
friends at all, I had to stop them from discovering my problems at home.

How was I going to keep this peace, this separation of my
friends and my family?

G
abriel

I
trembled as I followed Kota through his house. Nathan closed the door behind us
and fell in behind me. I could only take a glance but there were a ton of family
photos on the walls, decorations in displays, rugs spread across the floor, and
knickknacks on tables through the foyer. Compared to my own empty house, it
felt almost cluttered but I loved it. It felt so full and lived in. The living
room had a blue carpet that was similar to the one in Kota’s room. There was a
beige sofa with plump embroidered pillows. A wide screen TV sat inside an
entertainment center. There were a couple of plants sitting on top of side
tables and a bookshelf along one wall filled with novels.

“Where’s your mom?” I asked in my cracking voice, trying to
pull the conversation away from me.

“She’s at work.” He looked at the sofa as if considering
it. “We should head up to my room. But keep an ear out. Victor and Gabriel
should be here in a minute.”

I looked at Nathan, wanting to ask who Gabriel was but he
wasn’t looking at me and instead headed off after Kota past the dining room
toward the start of the stairs.

I slowly followed them, trying to come up with something to
tell them that wasn’t the truth, or to make it lighter than what was going on.
Only my mind went blank. I’ve already been not fully honest about other things.
Did I really want to make some of my first friends here hate me because I lied
to them? How would I ever explain my mom?

At the top of the stairs in his room, Kota started to drag
his computer chair across the floor. He opened a side drawer at his desk,
picking up a flash light. He positioned the chair in the middle of the room and
then pointed at it. “Sit.”

The command and power in his voice caused a knee-jerk
reaction. I sank into the chair, unsure of what else I could do.

Kota stood in front of me, with Nathan beside him. They
bent over me. Kota held the flashlight toward my face, flicking the light on.
“Open up,” he said.

I swallowed, opening at his request. Kota squinted through
his glasses as he looked into my throat. He studied my mouth. I wasn’t sure
what I was supposed to do. My heart was pounding.

“What’s wrong with her?” Nathan asked next to him. He was
trying to glance around Kota’s head to look inside my throat, too.

“It’s... burned,” he said. He flicked the light off. With
his free hand he tugged at my chin, making me look at his eyes. “What happened
yesterday when you got home?”

I moved my lips as the power in his voice lured me to, but
I couldn’t find the words. I was unable to lie to him. Was it his devouring
green eyes or the way his concern for me was apparent on his face?

Kota frowned. He knelt in front of me, wrapping his warm
fingers around mine. “Sang, I’m going to assume if you’re not telling me, it’s
something bad. I’m going to ask you some questions. Just nod if I’m right. Did
you get into trouble yesterday with your parents?”

I sighed, nodding.

“Was it because you left with us?”

I shook my head. Nope.

Nathan sat on Kota’s bed. I felt him looking at me but I
couldn’t make myself face him.

Kota grasped my hand a little tighter. “Did they have you
drink something?”

I bit my lip, closed my eyes and nodded. I swallowed hard.
This was it, I thought. They would send me home now and I’d never see them
again. Who wants to deal with a girl with crazy parents?

“What was it?” Kota asked softly. When I didn’t respond, he
squeezed my hand again. “Sang? Tell me. What was it?”

I peeled my lips apart to whisper. “Lemon juice... and
vinegar.”

“Fucking shit,” Nathan bellowed. “What the hell did they do
that for?” His eyes were so cold. He turned to Kota. “We have to do something.
They can’t do that.”

“I know,” Kota started. His eyes were fixed on me and his face
was as serious as Nathan’s. “Has this happened before?”

I shook my head.

“Why did they do it this time?”

I glanced at Nathan to divert my eyes somewhere besides
Kota’s face but Nathan was making me tremble just as badly. “Silas called,” I whispered.
“A boy’s never called before. Please don’t tell him. He’ll feel bad. It’s not
his fault.”

Nathan grunted. “Start at the top. Are you telling me I
can’t come for you if you’re at your house? I can’t call you? How bad are we
talking?”

The sound of a car driving up and a short car honk cut
through.
Ugh, more people
, I thought. Victor and Gabriel. This was way
too complicated. I wanted to go home and hide only I wasn’t brave enough to
move. Now Gabriel, a complete stranger, was going to learn about this, too. I
shook with humiliation.

I hesitated and Kota stared at me a moment but then he got
up. “Your voice will come back. You just need to rest your throat. Hang on a
second.” He crossed the room and ran down the stairs. I heard him answering the
door below.

The moment his head was gone, Nathan turned to me. “Why
don’t you just say it? Do your parents beat you?”

I waved my hands in the air across my body. “It’s not quite
like that. They don’t hit me or anything.”

“But they don’t like you hanging out with anyone? What
happens if I showed up?”

“Don’t. Please.”

His mouth turned into a frown. “Would they flip out if they
found out you were with me today?”

I nodded.

“Hey,” he said, he leaned toward me until his face was
close to mine. “Don’t worry. I won’t say anything to them. What about the other
girl? You have a sister, right? Did she get this, too?”

I shook my head. I slid out of the office chair and onto my
knees to sit on the floor, sitting delicately on my heels. “She didn’t have to
drink...” I said, but my voice fell then. I swallowed.

Nathan moved off of the bed and then sat next to me. He was
about to say something when thudding on the stairs sounded again. I heard
someone shut the door downstairs and the flick of the lock and then three heads
appeared as they got to the top of the stairs. Victor was first. He was wearing
dark designer jeans this time, his shirt was white, buttoned up to his
collarbone. His face looked a little strained but when he saw me, he relaxed a
little. He pushed back his wavy hair away from his eyes. Kota followed behind
him. A moment later, another guy popped up from the stairs, looking as if he’d
jumped the last couple of steps.

When I first heard the name, I thought it would be a girl.
Gabriel was about Victor’s height though a little slimmer in the hips. His hair
hung long around his chin but brushed back away from his face. Two locks of
hair, one tucked behind each ear, was colored a lighter shade of blond. The
rest of his hair was a rich brown. His eyes were crystal-like, bright blue,
excited and wild. He had a couple of rings on each of his hands and stud
earrings in each ear, his right ear had three more rings going up along the
top. He wore jeans and a neon green tank shirt which showed off lean, but
defined biceps.