Cold Kiss Part 4

I glance sideways at him, but he's focused on the sidewalk, watching as he steps carefully in the middle of each square, avoiding the cracks.

That sounds hard. It's hard enough for us, with just my mom, but at least she's an adult, even if Dad left a cold, empty s.p.a.ce behind when he left us. I wonder how old Gabriel's sister is, if she gave up college for this, where their dad is exactly, and suddenly Gabriel turns his head and looks at me with a sly grin.

"Curious, huh?"

I reel back as if he slapped me. "Not fair."

"Well, you're thinking about me, so I figured it was a little bit fair."

"But you couldn't know that unless you peeked." I sound like a little kid about to have a tantrum, and I hate it, but as much as I want to ask him about his grandmother, and what he knows about people with powers like mine, I want to scream, Don't look! even more.

Maybe he can feel it anyway, because his grin fades and he hunches into his coat again as the wind sweeps us farther up the street. "I'm sorry. I was just teasing. Olivia's twenty-four, and no, she never went to college. My dad is, um, another story."

He looks so contrite, almost shy, that I want to apologize, but I won't. I can't, I realize, as I watch his strange eyes darting over at my face, his hair falling forward.

He's just a boy. A cute boy, yeah, a really interesting boy, but just a boy. And I have a boy. I have a boyfriend, even if the rest of the world thinks he's gone. I have a boyfriend who has nothing but me, and not even all of me, not anymore. I don't have any business with Gabriel, here and now or any other time. And I can't let him think I do.

So I square my shoulders, hitch my battered JanSport up higher, and set my jaw. "I'm sorry. That sounds rough."

He blinks, surprised by my tone maybe, but before he can say anything I'm pointing at the sign for Edgewood, my street. My stomach twists, sick-hot, because I hate lying, pretending, and it feels like all I do anymore.

"That's me, and I'm late, so I'm going to run. Bye, Gabriel."

My Docs smack the sidewalk as I take off at a run, and if he answers, the wind carries it away.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

DANNY SAYS, "YOU DIDN'T MEAN IT," AND PULLS me close. I nod, even though it doesn't really work with my forehead pressed against his chest, and he smoothes a hand down my back. Warm, strong, almost big enough to span it with his fingers outstretched.

Warm. Warm? I turn my head so my cheek rests against his breastbone, and there, just underneath the skin, is the st.u.r.dy clock of his heart, ticking steadily.

"Danny..."

But when I raise my head to look at him, it's Gabriel, his smile a sudden flash of white. "You didn't mean it," he says, and I nod again, even though I'm not sure what he means.

He smells good, faintly spicy, and he's so warm, so warm, I can feel his blood carrying heat through him, pushing up through bone and muscle to skin.

"You didn't mean it," he whispers into my hair, and I close my eyes. I didn't. I know that much. He knows that much.

It's his hand stroking my back now, and I'm almost asleep when I hear the thud.

Danny, his eyes like polished stones in the dark, huddled in the corner, his arms around his knees. Thud. His head hits the wall with a sickening wet gush. Thud.

"You didn't mean it," he says, and Gabriel strokes my back. Thud.

"Stop," I whisper, but Gabriel won't let me go. Blood is running down the back of Danny's head, dripping thick and black in the dark onto his shirt. Thud.

I open my eyes, panting, as the wall behind my bed shakes. It's Sunday morning, and lately Robin's been practicing headers in her bedroom, so she can bounce the soccer ball off the wall.

I squint at the alarm clock: 10: 47. Way too late, even on a Sunday morning, to complain to Mom. I bury my head under the pillow instead, but it doesn't help. I can feel the vibrations.

I can see Danny's face. Thud.

I bang on the wall with one balled-up fist and sit up to throw back the covers. I hate Sundays.

Sundays are the only days the salon is closed, so they used to be awesome. Sundays meant pancakes or waffles for breakfast and lingering around the table with the radio on. Sundays were when Mom cut our hair right there in the kitchen, or we convinced her to curl or braid it or put it up in elaborate knots. When we walked to the playground or went to the mall, when we made cookies on rainy afternoons or went to the matinee at the dollar theater on the south side of town. Dad's been gone so long that Robin doesn't remember other weekends, when the four of us went to the park or downtown for pizza, or curled up on the sofa in one big pile on winter days, watching a movie.

I remember, but Dad's been gone so long that the ache of missing him is dull, a vague sore spot that I know not to touch. It's harder not to poke at the memories of Aunt Mari and Gram.

It's different now, anyway. We're older, for one-even Robin isn't into sitting around playing hairdresser anymore. She has soccer practice on Sundays in the fall and the spring, and I sometimes have shifts at Bliss. Mom uses the day to do laundry and clean the bathroom, which she doesn't trust either of us to do right, and usually spends the afternoon sprawled on the sofa with a DVD or a book.

Even last spring, I might have joined her, curled up to watch a cheesy movie or let her quiz me on my French vocabulary. Before Danny died, in other words. Before I had so much to hide.

Now it's the hardest day to get out back to see Danny-even if Mom decides to hit the supermarket, she's never gone for more than an hour or two, and when we're both home, I can feel the weight of her gaze on me like a physical thing.

She's in the kitchen when I go downstairs, and she looks up from folding clean laundry on the kitchen table when I head for the coffeemaker.

"She's doing it again." I close my eyes as I lift my mug to my nose and breathe deep. If I can concentrate, the dream will fade out, disappear like the steam curling out of my mug.

"I need a little more information than that, babe." I can hear the smile in her voice. It's a good day, then. I know she's been busy at the salon, and that always makes her happy.

"Robin. Soccer ball. Wall." I slouch into the chair across from her and set my mug down.

"Hey, don't splash," Mom says, and then c.o.c.ks her head, listening. Upstairs, there's a distant thud, thud, thud, and she sighs. "Well, it got you out of bed. I'm not sure I can complain."

"It's Sunday."

"Not working today?" Above the T-shirt of Robin's she's folding, her eyes are calm and simply curious, the same gold-flecked green as Robin's. Mine are plain brown, the color of dried mud.

"I worked yesterday," I tell her, and breathe in the caffeine-rich steam of my coffee again. Mom's always up and out early on Sat.u.r.days, since that's the salon's busiest day. Robin usually has a game, and then spends the afternoon with Mom doing homework and answering the phone at the front desk.

"Do you have homework to do today?"

"Always," I groan, and pick through the laundry when I spot my favorite shirt. "But I'm going to see Becker later."

Mom makes a noncommittal hmm noise, but I can feel her watching me as I finish my coffee and set the mug in the sink. I hate that she doesn't trust me anymore, but I hate more that I know she shouldn't. Half of what I tell her is a lie, and I never meet her eyes these days if I can help it.

Even now, I'm wondering if I can get down Clark and over to Rosewood and to the loft before I come home. I've never left Danny alone for a whole day, and he was strange last night, his fingers too tight where they were twined with mine as I said good-bye.

Thud. I can still hear it, still see his face, smooth as stone, empty, his eyes flat and unseeing. I turn around and paw blindly across the counter for the basket of fruit, anything to focus on.

Robin bangs into the kitchen as I'm peeling a banana, soccer ball balanced in one hand and her practice bag slung over her shoulder.

"Ooh, look, she's risen from the dead," she says, and I nearly choke on my banana.

"No thanks to you," I manage a moment later, when Mom frowns. "Soccer is an outdoor sport, genius."

"Whatever." She's got the att.i.tude down already, I have to give her that, even if she is still twelve. "I'm the only girl on the team who can head the ball, and I have to practice."

I roll my eyes at her this time, even though it is sort of cool-I've been to a couple of her games, and she's really good, a st.u.r.dy little streak of lightning on the field, her feet always moving. She loves sports the way I, well, don't, and it's pretty awesome.

I don't tell her that, though. Her head is big enough as it is.

She's rooting around in the fridge for something when Mom says, "Do you want a ride over to Becker's?"

I wonder if she knows how long it takes me to get there when I walk. Not because it's far, but because I drag it out. Ryan and I trade off visiting Becker, but I hate it. "Nah, I'm good."

"If you're sure." She stands up and puts the last folded T-shirt on the top of the pile, and for a minute I want to bury my head on her shoulder, tell her I'm not sure, that I don't want to go at all, that I need her to fix everything for me. But the time when I could have done that is long past.

Instead, I let her ruffle my hair as she walks past me. "I think I'll swing by and get Robin after practice, maybe head to the mall. You guys could use a couple of winter things, I bet. And we can get some lunch, too, Binny."

"Really?" Robin is beaming. She turns to set her water down on the counter and her grip on the soccer ball slips-for just a second, when she catches sight of it, it hangs there in midair like a wobbly little planet, and I can feel the air tighten, thick and heavy the way it feels before a thunderstorm.

She blinks, surprised, and catches it before it hits the floor, and both of us look at Mom.

Her lips are pressed tight together, but she doesn't freak. Instead, she just says, "You'll be done by one, right? I'll pick you up."

Robin lets out a relieved breath and heads for the front door, calling over her shoulder, "See you!"

And then it's just me and Mom again. I glance out the window at the backyard, where the roof of the loft is just visible through the trees, and my stomach swoops low and fast as I picture the Danny in my dream.

Between going to see Becker and checking on Danny, it's hard to say which I want to do less.

Becker's mom answers the door when I ring the bell a few hours later. She always looks vaguely guilty to see me, pale eyes flicking everywhere but at my face. Becker was driving the car, after all.

"George is upstairs." She stands back to let me pa.s.s, and I can smell something on the stove in the kitchen, dark and spicy. Mrs. Becker used to work downtown at the health clinic, but she quit after the accident to take care of Becker. He's the youngest, "her baby," she told me the day I went to see him in the hospital, and now whenever I go to the house something is cooking.

I don't know where all the food goes, because both she and Becker look like they haven't eaten in months.

There's a distant grunt when I knock on Becker's door, just audible over the sound of the TV. I push the door open and squint. The shades are drawn and the room is nearly night-dark aside from the light of the big flat-screen TV mounted to the wall opposite the bed.

Becker glances at me, and I can tell he's high. He's still on painkillers, even though I heard the doctors wanted him to stop. And I know that K.J. Simon sneaks him pot when he comes over. I can't believe his parents can't smell it-he doesn't even bother to wheel himself toward the window when he smokes, and the gra.s.sy, burnt scent of weed is baked into the curtains and the comforter now.

"Hey, Wren." He's sprawled on the bed, his mangled leg still braced and awkward. I take a couple of magazines off the easy chair in the corner and sit down as he struggles up on his elbows, wrenching himself into a sitting position.

"What're you watching?"

"Nothing." He picks up the remote and clicks the TV off, and I try not to cringe. It's easier when he leaves it on, when we can spend an hour silently watching a stupid movie or guys on BMX bikes coming this close to breaking their necks.

I was never really angry at him, although everyone a.s.sumed I would be. That's what his mom thinks, I know, and what Becker thinks, too. He can't look at me, either, unless he's really wasted, and then he can't stop talking, apologizing and crying and holding my hand.

I hate those days.

I should be furious with him. He bought the beer; he drove the car; he was speeding, laughing, not paying attention, drunk and goofing around like nothing in the world could hurt either him or Danny. But when I look at him now there's nothing but a whistling emptiness in my chest.

Becker's always been the clown, and he could afford to be. He's that kind of athletic good-looking, not as tall as Danny, and a little broader, but still pretty graceful. His parents have money, the kind that gets you into good schools even when you don't have the best grades. He was always the one grabbing Danny and Ryan to cut afternoon cla.s.ses and go drink beer up in the woods, or sneak into a movie.

Now no one can say if he'll ever walk again, at least without a crutch and a definite limp, even if he does get his act together and concentrate on physical therapy.

He rubs his eyes and takes a deep breath like he's working up to saying something, and I wish he wouldn't. Mostly I just wish I could leave, but Becker's my friend, too, and sometimes I feel bad, because I think I should feel worse. Becker lived through the accident, but life as he knows it is over.

"How are you?" he says, the words slurring together a little bit.

I shrug. "I should be asking you that."

He makes a dismissive noise and shakes his head. "The same, pretty much."

"Me too, I guess."

His face twists a little, and he doesn't look at me when he says, "I'm so sorry, Wren. I just wish..."

"Becker, don't." I can't listen to it today. "Let's watch something, okay?"

He doesn't answer me for a minute, and doesn't look up from the rumpled mess of his blue plaid comforter, and I wonder if he's fallen asleep, or if he's just really high. But in a moment he lifts his head, and his eyes are gla.s.sy, bright.

I turn to face the TV as he clicks it on, and we watch some behind-the-scenes thing on a metal band I've never heard of. I don't care, though. It's better than talking.

And it's a lot better than thinking about how neither one of us can let go, Becker of the boy he was before the accident, and me of the boy I lost. Holding on isn't doing either of us any good, but it's too late to change it now, for me anyway.

He's asleep when I look at him later, head drooping onto one shoulder, the skin under his eyes smudged dark and too thin. I turn off the TV when I leave, and I don't wonder what he dreams.

I stop at Bliss for a coffee on the way home, and I'm walking up Elm when Mom pulls up at the curb and honks. "Jump in," she calls. She's grinning, like this is the happiest accident ever, and I can't think of a good excuse to refuse even with Danny still alone in the loft.

We stop at the supermarket on the way home, and Robin proposes that we make enchiladas together, which we haven't done in ages. She's all lit up, flushed and bubbling over in ways I'm not sure she even notices-the fire Mom sets in the fireplace flickering higher when Robin sits down in front of it, the dented bell peppers firming up, glossy again, when she takes them out of the grocery bag. She came home with three new shirts and a pair of earrings, and it's sweet, how happy an afternoon at the mall with Mom makes her.

We're just sitting down to eat when my phone buzzes in my jacket pocket. Mom lifts an eyebrow but doesn't protest, even though cell phones are forbidden at the table when we're sitting down to a meal all together. We're having a good evening, and it makes me realize how long it's been since we've done this kind of thing.

I pull out my phone and glance at the screen: Jess. Great.

We talked after school on Friday, if you can call it that. It felt like some sort of bizarre peace negotiation, both of us mumbling we were sorry without really looking at each other, and Darcia standing in as referee, prodding us to discuss my plan for a sleepover. But I could tell Jess saw how happy Dar was, and since I'd been careful to steer clear of Gabriel all day, she didn't have anything to call me on.

Of course, after the way I'd blown Gabriel off Thursday afternoon, he barely looked at me in cla.s.s anyway, much less came to find me at lunch. It stung, like the shock of cold water in your lungs.

"Hey," I say when I answer my phone now, trying to sound as normal as possible. As far as Mom knows, Jess and I spend as much time together as ever, even if it's not at our house.

"Hey," Jess says back, and there's silence for a minute, a weird stalemate. She said she'd be busy most of Sat.u.r.day, but that she'd call today. Now she has, and without Darcia here to mediate, I'm not sure what to say. Clearly, neither is Jess.

But Mom is looking at me as she bites into a piece of pepper, and I scramble.

"We're eating dinner."

There's another brief silence before Jess says slowly, "Okay. Um. So what's the deal with Friday?"