The Reaping of Norah Bentley (14 page)

I sighed, tilted my head to the side just enough to catch his eye. He was already watching me, and his eyes lit up a little when he saw me looking back at him. He straightened up, lifted his arm and stretched it across the back of the loveseat, leaving the space beside him free.

I should have stayed put; it would have been better for both of us, maybe, to keep up the whole not talking, not touching thing. Better for me to try and make a clean break, so that whatever happened between me and Eli, whatever happened with my life, wouldn’t hurt Luke. I didn’t want to hurt him.

But I moved anyway. Because I was too weak to stay away, or maybe because I was afraid of hurting him right then, right in that moment if I ignored the way he was looking at me; his brown eyes quietly pleading, wanting the same thing I did. Wanting this to just be another night in Rachel’s basement, and for everything clogging the air between us to somehow just go away. If only for tonight.

I curled up right beside him, close enough to feel the warmth of his body but not quite close enough to touch it. I might have stayed like that too, might not have moved for the rest of the night—but Luke reached over and took my hand.

“Damn Norah—your hands are freezing,” he said. “You want me to grab a blanket?”

“I’m not really cold,” I said. “Just my hands, I guess. Don’t worry about it.”

He dropped his arm down around my shoulders and pulled me against him, like he wanted to try and warm me up anyway. And there was something different about the way he held me; it wasn’t the easy, carefree embrace I was used to. There was something controlling about it, like he was afraid that if he didn’t hold me tight enough I might get up and run away.

“Hey Luke?”

“Hm?”

“I can hardly breathe.”

“Sorry.” He didn’t loosen his grip any.

“I’m not going anywhere, you know. You could relax a little,” I said quietly. But now I knew I was making a promise I might not be able to keep, and I’m pretty sure he knew it too, because he only held me tighter.

I managed to make it through half the movie without really watching it at all. Now that it was on, I found myself wondering why I’d ever agreed to watch it in the first place; I knew it was all fake, and blood and stuff had never really bothered me before. But after this afternoon, the thought of seeing even a fake death was enough to make me start to break out in a cold sweat again.

So I kept my eyes moving, searching for anything else to focus on. I didn’t really want to look at Luke either, though, so my options were kind of limited. I watched Rachel and Parker out of the corner of my eye for awhile, which was amusing at first; Parker was well on his way to being drunk, and Rachel was acting like a lot more drunk then I think she was, and between the two of them there was a lot of laughter going on. Their goofing around started to get R-rated after a few minutes though, and with an awkward blush I looked away, decided that watching a million death scenes would be better than watching the two of them make-out.

“Maybe I should take the beer away from them?” Luke said a few minutes later.

“That’s probably a good idea,” I said. “Somehow I doubt they’ll even notice it’s gone.”

Luke laughed, and I sat up enough to let him slip out from behind me. Shaking his head, he walked over and grabbed what was left of the six-pack sitting on the coffee table and carried it back to the fridge. I leaned forward, propped my elbows up on my knees and rested my chin in my hands. Without really thinking about it, my gaze drifted to the TV.

The gruesome picture on the screen wasn’t entirely unexpected, but it was still a nasty jolt, to go from laughing with Luke about our crazy friends to seeing that dead body lying there, her eyes bulging, unblinking, and the thin trickle of blood dripping from her mouth. I felt the bile rising in the back of my throat and I looked away and shut my eyes tight. When I opened them again, they instantly found the sliding glass doors, and without a word I started moving toward them.

“Norah?” It was Luke.

I paused in mid-step but didn’t turn around. My balanced swayed a little. “Yeah?”

“Are you okay?”

“Uh-huh. Just need a little fresh air, I think.” I started walking again, and didn’t stop until I was out the door and had slammed it shut behind me. It was no surprise to hear it opening again a minute later, or to see Luke stepping out into the moonlight after me.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“I told you. Just needed to breathe, to get away from all that for awhile.”

“From what, the movie?” He took a step closer to me. “You’ve seen those movies a hundred times—they’re all the same. It’s never bothered you before. You know the blood and stuff is fake, it’s just corn syrup and food dye and—”

“I know,” I said, folding my arms across my chest. “I guess I just couldn’t stomach it tonight.” I forced a smile. “Sorry. We can go back inside, if you want to finish watching it.”

“Don’t worry about that,” he said. “I think I’d rather stay out here anyway. It’s more…peaceful.” He gave me a knowing smile, while I shook my head.

“Can we talk about how awkward that is?” I said, thankful for the subject change. “I mean my God, I love Rachel—you know I do. But Parker Maples? Really? She’s acting like an idiot.”

Luke shrugged. “They’re just having fun.”

“I hope so. I don’t think I could handle anything serious between the two of them.”

“I don’t think you have to worry about that,” Luke said. “I’m pretty sure Parker doesn’t know the meaning of the word serious.”

“Which worries me almost as much,” I said with a frown. “I don’t want her to get hurt.”

“She’s smarter than that.”

“Normally.” I stared at my hands, and suddenly Eli’s words were in my head. “But love makes people do stupid things,” I finished softly.

I looked up to find Luke hesitating, studying me. “Yeah,” he said uncertainly. “Yeah, I guess it does. But she’s got you looking out for her, right? Making sure she doesn’t do anything too stupid.”

“I guess so.”

“And I can always kick Parker’s ass, if it comes down to that.”

I laughed, in spite of myself. “But hopefully it won’t,” I said.

“But if it does…”

“I’m sure you’d win that fight.”

“I would.”

He smiled, and for a minute both of us seemed to have run out of things to say—about Parker and Rachel, at least. Luke was quick to change the subject again though, the words rushing out like he was afraid the silence would become permanent if we gave it too long to settle.

“Speaking of stupid things.” He took a deep breath. “Last night. Sorry about that.”

“You don’t need to apologize.”

“I shouldn’t have taken off like that. Shouldn’t have just left you.”

“It’s okay.”

“I guess I just kind of lost it for a minute there.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“I would understand if you did, I mean I just—”

“I don’t. I really don’t.”

He took another step toward me, reached down and took my hands.

“Still freezing,” he said, looking down and closing his fingers over them.

“But I’m still not cold,” I said. “It’s just my hands. Poor circulation or something, I guess.”

“Probably,” he said, more to himself than me. “That’s probably all it is.” He let them go and took a step back, and for a second he looked confused—like he wasn’t really sure how he’d gotten out here, what he was doing standing beside me. He walked over and sat in the plastic lawn chair on the edge of the patio, and once he was there he seemed to recover quick enough, and without looking at me he said,

“That guy you were with. Eli, right?”

“…Yeah.”

“You and him.” I waited for him to go on, but that was all he said. It wasn’t even a question. It was a statement— one loaded with unspoken assumptions, which was kind of irritating.

“What about me and him?” I asked, as calmly as I could.

“I just need to know,” he said. “What he is to you. If you and him are…”

He let the question hang there, and there was nothing for me to do but pick it up, even though I didn’t really know what I was going to do with it.

“I don’t know what we are,” I said. “It’s complicated.”

He hesitated for a minute, and then he dropped the question I was terrified he was going to ask: “And what about us?”

And then all of a sudden I
was
cold; my whole body numb, my lips frozen in place. My mind was warm though— alive and moving and exploding with a million different answers to give him. They all seemed wrong, though. Too fake, too painful, too complicated. This was all too complicated. That’s all I could think, and it’s all I could tell him.

“There wasn’t anything complicated about it before,” Luke said, getting to his feet. “Not for me, anyway.”

“Luke…”

“What, Norah?” His voice was sharp all of a sudden; almost physically painful to my ears. I don’t think he meant for it to come out like that, because when he spoke again his voice was gentler than I’d ever heard it. “You know what? You don’t even have to tell me. I know you want to run. You always do.”

“I didn’t say I wanted to leave.”

“You don’t have to say it.”

“You’re not being fair.”

“I’m being honest.”

“I’m still standing here, aren’t I?” I said, my voice rising now. “I don’t know why, since you’re acting like a crazy jerk—but I’m not running anywhere!”

“If I’m acting like a crazy jerk, it’s your fault.”

“
My
fault? How the hell is it my fault?”

He tilted his head back and closed his eyes, took a deep breath through his nose. “Because.”

“Because why?”

“Because this is what you do to me.”

“Me? How do I have—”

“You and him. The thought of him being anywhere near you drives me crazy. There’s a pretty good chance I’m going to hurt that kid if I see him again.”

“Don’t say things like that.”

“I’m just telling you the truth.”

“You’re being stupid.” My voice had grown weak all of a sudden. My whole body had. I felt so vulnerable; which didn’t make any sense, because I’d hardly even said anything. Luke was the one who was baring his soul here. So why was I the one who felt naked, standing there under his gaze, like I’d just told him every thought I’d ever had, everything I’d ever felt for him? “Maybe I am being stupid again,” he said. “But I’m not apologizing for it this time.”

“I never asked you to apologize the first time,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say. There didn’t seem to be anything else
to
say. And Luke was done with words too, I guess, because in the next instant he closed the space between us and crushed his lips against mine.

I might have pulled away, I don’t know; but before I could move, his hand was on the small of my back, his fingers digging into me, pressing me closer to him. And I got caught up in the moment, in his familiar scent, and in the exhilarating new sensation of his taste: the faint tang of cherry chapstick mingling with the taste of the coke he’d been drinking earlier. Or maybe it was the taste of the coke
I’d
been drinking; it was hard to tell what was mine and what was his anymore, even after he pulled his lips away from mine.

His hands stayed on my back for a minute, the tips of his fingers warm on my bare skin where he’d slid them underneath the bottom of my shirt. I felt faint. When he did start to pull away I almost stopped him, because I was half-afraid I might fall; but he moved too quickly, planted a soft, lingering kiss on my forehead and then took a step back toward the house.

“Not apologizing for that, either,” he said.

The porch light flickered as he slammed the door shut behind him.

His taste was still on my lips. I was sitting out there, by myself, making a concentrated effort not to let my tongue touch them. Because they didn’t just taste like cherry chap stick and coke; there was something else there. If guilt had a taste, I guess this is what it would have been: his taste mingled with mine, with the saltiness of the thin layer of sweat glistening on my skin.

How could I have let him do that? I didn’t even want to get close to him on the couch. I
shouldn’t
have got close to him. We were complicated before—what were we now?

I heard the glass door sliding open, and I turned to see Rachel stepping out. She was alone.

“Hey,” she said. She still had a beer in her hand, but her walk was mostly straight as she came and sat down in the chair beside me. I looked from her, back to the door, questioning.

“They’re both gone,” she said.

“…Luke left too?”

“Parker was acting like a jerk,” Rachel explained. “And I took his keys away from him a long time ago, so Luke took him home.”

“Oh.”

“What about you? What are you doing out here by yourself?”