The Ylem (16 page)
“You’re an enigma,” I said in a blur. He
frowned, confused about the abrupt direction the conversation had
taken. “One day you’re totally cold, you ignore me, and you even
hide from me…”
“You were looking for me?” he asked.
I rolled my eyes.
“I'm sorry, go on,” he said, hiding a
smile.
“And then…you behave really nice, talk to me,
offer me a ride to my house, and you want us to be buddies?
Why?”
He hesitated, pensive. “I’ll keep that to
myself.”
It didn’t surprise me. “You keep a lot of
things to yourself.”
“It’s part of being enigmatic.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. The way he was
looking at me, and turning my whole body into a pool of warmth,
told me he couldn't help to stare either.
“It’s good to see you laugh,” he said.
“Well, if you want to see it more often,
you’ll have to cut your rollercoaster behavior.”
He laughed. “I promise. And I apologize.”
“Apology accepted,” I said, raising my
chin.
“Thank you.” He bowed gentlemanly and stared
at me for a few more seconds—long, heart-racing seconds.
I wondered what he was looking, what he was
thinking. Was his heart beating as fast as mine?
He cleared his throat. “Sorry, but I need to
get going if I don’t want to find myself with the Aqualogix people
in the pool.”
Oh, the sight of him in a Speedo. Lucky
people.
“Sure.” I pulled open the door in a flash.
“Thanks for the ride.” I slipped out and snapped the door shut
behind me.
“Kalista?” Tristan called, skidding me to a
halt. He leaned across the seat. “Don’t you think it will be easier
for your father if I bring you from school henceforth?”
My stomach tightened. “Do you think?” I asked
him, holding back a yes in my throat.
“For your father’s sake.”
“Good enough.”
He smiled his incredibly sexy smile, pulled
back and drove away.
I stared dumbfounded, anchored to the
ground.
I spent the rest of the day glued to the
couch. I forgot about all the things I’d said I would do to keep my
mind busy. I was so deeply engrossed with the conversation I’d had
with Tristan that thinking about anything else was hopeless. His
beautiful face was stuck in my head, every word, every gesture,
every smile—everything. . He was branded onto every single neuron.
What was happening to me?
I'm just…surprised by the whole
being-friends-thing, just surprised.
My dad, though, didn’t agree with me. “What’s
the matter? You look stupefied again.” he said, scanning my face
with his brown eyes. He’d come home a bit later than usual and was
trying now to catch up on his writing. He used to write in his
studio all the time, claiming it was the only place he could
concentrate and build all that creative energy. But since the one
here was a still a huge mess, he’d migrated to the living room.
“Nothing.” I shook my head in denial. “Busy
day, huh?”
“Yeah, a lot of things with the theater, and
I still have to finish this play.” He took off his glasses and
pressed his eyes with his fingers. “Good thing Tristan offered to
take you here.”
My smile disappeared. “What? You didn’t ask
him to do it?”
“No. I was going to pick you up, but Julian
told me Tristan offered to take you, and I thought it was a good
idea. Saved me a lot of time.”
I scowled, confused. Didn’t he say my dad had
asked him to bring me home?
“Honey?” he asked, noticing my
expression.
“I'm hungry,” I said, dodging the real qualms
in my head.
“Let me see what I can cook,” He leaned
forward to stand up.
“No, Dad.” I held up my hand to stop him.
“You’re tired, leave it up to me. I’ll make delightful sandwiches
for both of us.”
And I’ll definitely kill someone
tomorrow.
CALEB
We found her. We finally found the
Benandanti. It was time to tell Gavran and the others. Our mission
was at long last coming to its end.
Soon. Very, very soon…
KALISTA
Tristan is no good. He’s no good.
I
forced myself to not look back for him in the parking lot. I was
standing close to the school’s entrance in our usual spot, waiting
anxiously for Valerie and Owen, or Dean, even—anyone who would
distract me.
I decided to focus on the last scenes we’d
read in English class and took a journey through the Forest of
Arden. Okay, I started, there were different levels of joke and
meta-joke going on in these scenes. Orlando “wooed” the disguised
Rosalind and…
“Good morning,” said a voice behind me.
My neck stiffened.
No, please no
. Why was it that
whenever you wanted to stay away from something, that something
found you?
“Morning,” I replied, not looking back.
Tristan half circled me and stopped, facing
me. “Is it a good morning?” He cocked his head, flashing me his
mind-blowing eyes.
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“You tell me.”
“No, I'm done with the telling,” I snapped,
unable to hold my anger anymore. I knew I was being petty, but for
some reason I couldn't help it.
He knitted his eyebrows, a smile fluttering
on his lips. “Who’s the enigmatic one now?”
“I'm not enigmatic.” I looked back at him,
bristling with anger. “I'm just tired of burning my brain out
trying to guess why you do the things you do. And for once, it’s
you on the other side, struggling to guess what’s wrong, and not
me. I don’t like people who lie to me whenever they have the
chance. In fact, I hate people who do that.” My face was reddening.
I wanted to stop this sudden outburst of fury. But I couldn’t. It
was stronger than me. “I mean, what do you think I am? A moron?
That I wouldn’t figure out about yesterday? Because it’s clear that
you believe I'm bird-brained. And maybe I'm not as perfect as you
are, mister, but—”
“You’re better.” He said, making me choke in
my own sermon.
I gazed at his mellow eyes, speechless.
He smiled. “Can I explain everything
now?”
I nodded.
“You’ve been really slippery these days,
always avoiding me and getting annoyed every time I come
around—like now.” He motioned with his head. “I didn’t want to
leave things like this. I wanted to talk to you, and the
opportunity came along when my father told me he was going to work
with yours the entire week. I didn’t tell you it was me who wanted
to give you a ride because I knew you were going to say no, even
more so after the cold looks you gave me at the cafeteria. They
bothered me more than I would’ve imagined.” He was whispering now,
running his hand through his sexy hair. “Still, it’s okay for me
feeling that way, but…not you, especially because of me. So if I
caused you more harm, I'm really sorry.”
I blinked. He cared about me, about my
feelings, and that was all the more unfathomable. It totally went
against the hot guy code.
However, this sweetness—and perhaps fake,
remember, guys couldn’t be trusted—didn’t delude my mind from
reality. I couldn’t trust someone so mysterious and so…puzzling. I
wouldn’t risk getting hurt again.
“I need more than your regret not to be
harmed again,” I said stiffly. He stared at me with intense eyes.
“I need you to not lie to me again, whatever the reason may be. I
just…can’t stand dishonesty.”
A tinge of amusement came to his eyes. “I'm
aware of that.”
“Are you?”
“I am,” he said, once again serious. “I
promise I won’t lie to you unnecessarily.”
My eyes narrowed. “Unnecessarily? So you’ll
still lie to me if you need to.”
He stared at me, silent. I didn’t need an
answer. He would lie to me again if necessary. He looked behind me,
as if he’d spotted something. I turned and saw Dean. He was totally
zoned out from Valerie and Owen’s chat. He was focused on us, the
annoyance visible in his eyes. It looked as if he wanted to come
over and punch Tristan.
I turned back uncomfortable. “I got to
go.”
“Kalista…”
“Look, it’s okay. It’s better like this.
Being friends wouldn’t have worked, anyway. And you know it. Our
worlds are way too different.”
He paused, lowering his eyes. “I guess you’re
right. I don’t know what I was thinking,” he said with a soft shake
of his head. He looked behind me again. “I won’t take your time
anymore. Your friends are waiting.” He gave me a small, sad smile,
looked at me for a few more heartbeats, and turned to walk inside
the school.
I stood there for a moment, watching the
entrance with a pang of sadness, and then, headed back to meet my
friends. Valerie was smiling at me, too eagerly, her face full of
questions. Dean looked frustrated, his face hard. I felt ill at
ease just to see him. And Owen was as always just…Owen. He didn’t
look probing or perturbed. He was just…Owen.
“Hey,” I said hesitantly.
“You looked pretty busy over there,” Owen
said.
“Yeah, she did.” Valerie added.
Dean didn't say anything.
“No…I was waiting for you guys but Tristan
showed up and asked me something about…English class,” I said
clumsily. “He had some doubts about the meta jokes.”
“That’s weird,” she said, unconvinced. “He
has straight A’s on everything. He should be the one giving us
explanations, don’t you think?”
Crap
. “I don’t know…apparently he’s
having trouble this time.”
“Weird,” she said still not convinced,
searching my face to see if there was something there.
“Newsflash: He’s weird all over,” Owen said.
“He might be
hot
and everything you want, but there’s
something about him that’s just not normal.”
“What, you say he’s weird just because he
doesn’t party or hook up with girls?” Valerie put her hands on her
hips. “Not every guy needs to be like that, you know. Obviously his
head isn't between his legs, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I
think it’s incredibly hot, and I think you feel intimidated.”
“Intimidated? Me? Pleeeze…I can take that guy
in a heartbeat.”
“He’s a pain in the ass,” Dean said in a
bilious tone, surfacing from the ashes of silence.
Valerie sighed. “You’re both jealous. There’s
nothing wrong with him, is there, Kalista?”
I scowled at her. “Let’s just go to
class.”
Later on, I saw myself forced to explain to
Valerie what’d happened with Tristan—avoiding details, as
always—passing her secret notes during classes and trying to
convince her everything was over. But Valerie was stubbornness made
flesh. At the end of Calculus class, she enlightened me with her
opinion. “You know what your problem is?” She drew near my ear,
lowering her voice so Owen couldn’t hear. “You’re looking for
excuses to not like Tristan because you’re afraid to admit that you
do like him. That’s why you pushed him away.”
Her words tailed me all day and down to the
auditorium where a conference was going to be given today—something
about water crystals. The place was packed with students. Every
red-brownish seat weighted down with bodies of different
proportions. I scanned the jagged mantle of heads on my way down to
the front row, seeking the Triad’s matchless faces. Nothing.
Valerie sat down next to me and started prattling something about
Dean’s farewell party with Owen on the other side. Dean was two
rows back with two teammates, laughing about something with some
other students around him. And me? I was on the first seat of the
row, in my own little bubble, still pondering Valerie’s words.
Did I like Tristan? The term was truly
confusing. Aside from the honesty issue, he was a nice person,
polite, respectful, helpful, so yeah, I did like him in that way.
Needless to say he was amazingly gorgeous and every time I was near
him, he took my breath away. So again, yes, I did like him in that
way as well. How couldn’t I? It was like admiring a piece of art.
The type of “liking” Valerie meant involved deeper feelings, and
the only one I was sure of was gratitude. Other than that,
everything was a mystery to me, hidden in an obscure cave that
shrouded the light of my psyche.
But it didn’t matter anymore. None of that
mattered anymore.
A thin cloud of whispers and giggles suddenly
floated in the air. I turned back my head and froze. The Triad was
walking down, power and beauty trailing their steps. I gulped. The
only seats left were the ones next to me, on the other side of the
corridor.
Perfect
.
Tristan took the first seat, just a few feet
away from me. Again, perfect. He looked at me, gave me a strained
smile and pointed his eyes to the stage. Regret started to take
over me. What if I’d gone too far? Everyone lied once in a while.
Everyone kept secrets. It wasn’t something unheard of. Why had I
made a mountain out of a molehill? Valerie’s words flashed into my
mind once more. Was I really afraid of admitting to myself I liked
Tristan? Had I really pushed him away because of that?
Anyway, he'd said he didn’t know what he was
thinking when he'd asked me to be friends with him. He'd realized
the big mistake it was. That was the only truth that mattered.
It wasn’t until the lights went off that I
snapped out of my thoughts. “Good afternoon,” Mr. Harder, our Bio
teacher, said on the microphone, turning on the projector. A large
blue screen appeared on the wide wall behind him. “Today we’re
going to talk about something that is essential to our existence
and well-being: water.” He was now playing with the laptop’s
keyboard. The displayed screen was now a hoary wavy background with
the blue words “Water Crystals” at the center.
“We all know water is the very source of life
on this planet. Its quality and integrity is vitally important to
all forms of life. It is widely known that the human body needs at
least eight glasses of water per day to sustain a good hydration.”
The image of a human body appeared on a new screen. “We are seventy
percent water, as is our planet Earth. In fact, we are composed of
trillions of chambers called cells that hold liquid. The quality of
our life is directly connected to the quality of our water. So how
can we know if the water we’re drinking is good for our
well-being?”