The Keeper's Vow (26 page)

“Sorry,” he said jumping at the sight of
her. She gripped her towel and threw the closest thing she could
grab—a handful of pens. He held up his hands to shield his
face.

“How did you
not
know I was in the
shower? I was thinking about hot water.” She kicked him out and
didn’t let him back in until after she put on clothes and towel
dried her hair. She was still mad about his bipolar episode last
night and she wanted to make it a point that she didn’t work on his
schedule.

“Do you want to see more or not?” he said,
sitting on her bed—his butt placed directly on one of her pillows.
“Sorry,” he mumbled moving it. He was wearing the yellow shirt with
the blue lining that shaped his broad shoulders nicely. It brought
out his eyes too, but nearly everything he wore did.

He turned away from her and stared at the
wall. She blushed, of course he heard that. Of course he thought
she was checking him out. “It’s just a nice shirt. Jesus. Can’t I
think it’s a nice shirt? It’s just a shirt. I say lots of people
have nice shirts.”
Shut up. Stupid. Shut up!

She felt him smile. She didn’t know how she
could feel that, but she did. “Just show me another memory,” she
sighed sitting on the bed next to him.

“Unless you think my pants look nice too,”
he laughed, stretching out his legs to show off his jeans. She
slapped him with her pillow until they were laying back, legs
dangling over the bed and memory surfing.

He idolized his father, every memory he
showed her today was about him. The way his dad’s laugh shook the
ground, the wrinkles in his face when he smiled. How he only saved
laughs and smiles for special moments, all other moments he was
resigned and constantly thinking. When she looked at Tristan now,
she could see how similar they were—contemplative, reserved, and
stoic. But when he laughed—as he was now, explaining to her why his
mother falling out of the boat was so funny—he shook the earth
too.

It didn’t take long for him to slip into The
Black Void. This time, it was as his father started to tell him
about an underground city. His father faded out and silence filled
her mind. Him in an empty house walking through quiet rooms—waiting
and waiting.

She braced herself for him to throw up his
wall and move away from her as if she had brought on the memory.
This time she would refrain from saying anything, she would just
sit there and feel helpless. Try not to think anything because that
would set him off too.

She prepared herself for all of that.

None of it came.

Tristan grabbed her hand. He squeezed it,
breathing like he was running from whatever lay just under the
surface of his mind. She didn’t know what to say or what to do. She
imagined anyone else would have known how to make him feel like
everything was all right. He squeezed her hand tighter and she
looked over at him, his eyes wide open as tears collected at the
edges. She looked away.

He could not be crying. Tristan, could not
be crying. She wasn’t equipped to handle this. She squeezed his
hand back because that was all she could do. Good friends wipe away
tears, she could do that. She looked back at him, but they were
gone and his eyes stared up at the ceiling with less alarm.

They lay in the bed silent and unmoving
aside from his chest slowing down until it was smooth and
natural.

He relaxed and his body sighed; the storm
had passed. She felt proud. He let her in. Not really
in,
but he didn’t run away from her, and she could still generally feel
him. That counted for something.

Tristan’s hand twitched a little and she
became aware of them holding hands. She didn’t dare look at him, or
move an inch. They were, after all, holding hands while lying on a
bed….

He shifted and his thumb brushed against her
hand.

They both froze.

Her palm itched. Of all times. It was
sweating, he would think she always had sweaty palms—not that she
cared. But still.

He stiffened again, and this time she
thought he’d stopped breathing. Their legs were touching too. She
hadn’t noticed it before, but there was a slight pressure…or was
she imagining that. The more she thought about it the more it
wasn’t there. Not that she wanted it to be. They were just friends
having good old fashion mind-reading fun.
Not that I think this
is anything else. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m not saying
anything…

Silence.

I mean I…I…I’ve got a lovely bunch of
coconuts deedly-dee, there they are just standing in a row. Big
ones, small ones, some the size of a bed.

“Katalina?”

“…” She cleared her throat.

“I think you mean, ‘
some as big as your
head’.
”

“I don’t have a big head.”

“No, you have a—I’m talking about the
lyrics.”

“...”

“We should probably call it quits
today.”

“Probably.”

He cleared his throat before pulling his
hand away from her and standing up. She tried hard not to think of
the shocking cold his absence left—not just from his hand, but from
his body so close to hers. “We should train instead.”

“Good idea,” she said, going over moves in
her head.
That new one with the kick at the end. That was the
most awkward—move—I’ve ever done. So awkward…the kick, just tossed
in there like that, with no warning.

Tristan cleared his throat. “Okay, see you
in ten minutes then.” He had that funny twisted frown on his face.
The one that made his eyebrows pop up to the top of his head. “Okay
then.” He crossed the room in three quick steps and tripped over
her book-bag as he left.

That moment between them—whatever it was—was
forgotten as soon at is ended. Not because she didn’t secretly
wonder about it every night for the last three days, but because
Tristan acted as if it never happened. Like they were just good
friends and that day was one friend being a good friend to the
other. And that
is
what it was.

What am I, twelve?

Katie fixed her pillow and snuggled up in
her green blanket. Her room was dark and cluttered like usual. She
stared at her orange cat lamp glowing under the moonlight.

She was being immature about holding hands.
No wonder he nearly ran out of the room.
But what if….

No, she had way more important things to
worry about, like the test she had to take tomorrow. She had no
idea how she was going to pass it. Tristan hadn’t been on her about
meditation like he had been, in fact he hadn’t been on her as hard
in training either—and here she was thinking about Tristan
again.

She rolled over in her bed. There wasn’t
anything wrong with thinking about him. They spent all their time
together. Like earlier today, they laughed more than they worked.
Everything was funny—when she accidentally slapped his forehead or
when he’d take on Russian personas and say,
‘I’m going to kill
you,’.

But there were other awkward times, the
worst she played over and over in her mind humiliated by what she’d
done, but secretly glad she’d done it.

She’d pined him on the leaf covered
ground.

“This is a weak hold,” he’d said.

“I’ll droll on you then,” she’d said, making
him laugh. His laugh always made her laugh, it was contagious and
spread through her like wild fire.

“You’ll have to do better than that,” he’d
started to worm his way out of her hold. “As soon as I’m out I’m
going to kill you.”

She felt herself losing her grip, and so—she
bit him. On his stomach. And he laughed frantically trying to get
her off. Then she laughed astonished that of all places to be
ticklish—he was nearly in tears.

“I got you,” she’d said in a terrible
Russian accent—and then it happened. That feeling of unease when an
imaginary line is crossed. He threw her off with strength he had
never allowed her to feel before.

“That just got weird,” he said. There were
tears on his face and his eyes gleamed. “You sounded like a hooker,
or a really bad honeypot.” He laughed harder.

“It’s not my fault it was the accent,” her
face burned, but watching him fall back laughing made her grin.

“Next time leave out the accent, Honeypot.”
He smiled up at her before shaking the world with his laugh.

What if it wasn’t her imagination. She
hadn’t imagined the way they brushed their arms against each other
whenever she ate dinner at Lucinda’s. He sat next to her there too,
like during lunch at school and every class they had. He’d pick
food off her plate when Lucinda wasn’t looking, and scrunch up his
nose. Sometimes she knew he liked it. She wondered if he’d ever
stop drinking blood and just eat food like her. She could never
drink blood.

She turned over in her bed again and closed
her eyes. Pitch blackness, like his hair. She wondered what it
would be like to touch his hair. She’d smelled it the other day as
a joke—said she bet it smelled like girl shampoo, but it didn’t. It
smelled like fresh soap. Bar soap.

Katie and Tristan were on their way to
school. Allison had stopped walking with them a few weeks ago when
she decided to jog there instead. Katie could have used a jog that
morning. It would have calmed her nerves. She couldn’t stop
hyperventilating.

“Sometimes I wonder about you,” Tristan
said, when she told him she was going to fail the evaluation. He
laughed and it only made her more frantic.

“We are at the bridge, Tristan! We are going
to cross it and get our memories erased. Okay, maybe not you, but
I’m going to have my memory fried.
Again
.”

“Katalina, you’re not going to have your
memory erased. You’ve been ready for weeks now,” he said with his
crooked smile.

“Oh my God. You’ve lost your mind.” She
wanted to slap him. He needed to be serious.

“Please don’t hit me,” he said, eyeing her.
“You’ve been transporting your consciousness into my body quicker
and quicker all week. What did you think memory surfing was? In
order to find your center you just have to concentrate on
yourself
, not me.”

“Why did you wait till now to tell me that?”
Katie said, still not knowing how she was going to completely do
that. She felt a little cheated. She thought he
wanted
to
show her those memories, not use it as an exercise. Besides
concentrating on Tristan was easy. Concentrating on herself was
like those stupid, “tell me about yourself” surveys teachers hand
out at the beginning of the school year.
As if they really care
what my favorite color is.

“Obviously you didn’t read chapter seven. It
covered the basics on using meditation to find your core. No wonder
you got a ‘C’ on that test.”

Now was not the time to chastise her. “How
did you know I got a ‘C’? You went through my book-bag?”

“No, that would be a violation of your
privacy, I got it from Mr. Carver’s grade book.”

She stared at him.
There are so many
things wrong with what you just said.

“You’re concerned about all the wrong
things. When it’s time for your test, just relax and think about
what makes you feel strong. Imagine a pit of energy in your
stomach.” She should have practiced before the test. What was wrong
with her? Tristan put his arm around her shoulder and his laugh
reverberated throughout her body. “It’s not that serious. You
are
a guardian, the power is there, you just need to
concentrate long enough for them to see it.”

She looked up at him. He only had seven
inches on her but she still had to look up—especially when they
were this close. “Are you sure?”

“You should actually
read
the book.
Not just look at the pictures.”

She punched him and he laughed pulling her
closer. She told herself the reason her heart was pounding so hard
was because of the test.

At school, she began to calm down. At least
there were four periods and lunch before the evaluation. She could
warm up and find some confidence. Maybe do breathing exercises
three through five. Then she could do a full cycle in second
period; but when she walked in her English class, all her plans
died an agonizing death as Mr. Carver smiled at her.

“Tristan. Katie. Just the two people I was
looking for. I asked Mr. Rhineheart to excuse you from class. Now
is the only time I’ll be able to give you your evaluations,” he
said, wearing a red tie and checkerboard chess suit that made him
look like an
Alice in Wonderland
executioner.

It’s all over. At least I won’t have to
remember all the horrible things. Being shot, the blood, a
decapitation...

Tristan nudged her as Mr. Carver ushered
them to his classroom. “Who’d like to go first?” Mr. Carver asked,
opening his office door in the back of the room. Katie looked at
Tristan and silently implored for him to let her go last.

“It won’t make any difference,” Tristan
said, glancing in her direction. “I’ll go first.”

Katie exhaled. He was right, it wouldn’t
make any difference, but she wasn’t ready to say goodbye to the
world as she knew it. She waited ten, too short, minutes before
Tristan came out of the office. She had been too busy having a
mental breakdown to notice him walk over.

“You’ll be fine. Just remember to breathe.”
She nodded, her hands sweating. “Want me to wait?” he asked in a
way that startled her. Why was he being so nice if this was a piece
of cake? “It’s not that.” He offered a smile.

She shook her head as Mr. Carver called her
in.

Katie walked into the office and was
surprised by the presence of another man. He was tall, lean, and
dressed in a jet-black suit.
A stylish executioner
.

“This is Mr. Reynolds. He’s a good friend of
mine and he’s going to help us with your evaluation.” Mr. Reynolds
stuck out his hand for her to shake. When she saw the moon tattoo
on the inside of his wrist, he winked.