Forbidden. Part 5

Claire would have to initiate a conversation with the guy she'd had a major crush on for the past two years-the guy every girl in school had a crush on-and the one person she'd always been too shy speaking around, let alone to. And of all things, she had to somehow convince him that he needed her help. Could she do it?

She had to at least try.

As they exited cla.s.s, Claire strode quickly after Neil. You can do this, she told herself.

When she caught up to him, she put on her most cheerful smile. "Senor Mitchum." Her voice cracked, her mouth had gone dry, and her heart was pounding so hard it threatened to leap out of her chest.

"Brennan." Neil casually returned her grin. "How's it going?"

"Good." The single word came out like a squeak. Claire cleared her throat. "You know," she said slowly, straining for calm, "you did me a huge favor by getting me into Concert Singers. I'd like to perform a service for you in return."

Neil looked at her. "I'm not quite sure I get your meaning," he said hesitantly.

Claire was suddenly aware of the innuendo in what she'd said, and felt her face grow hot. "I meant ... that is, I was just wondering ... if ... you might like some help with Spanish."

His smile faded. "What makes you think I need help with Spanish? Just 'cause I don't get soap operas?"

"No, that's not it," Claire replied quickly. "I didn't know how to answer that question either, even though I saw the episode last year. But... I couldn't help noticing that you were struggling with verb tenses, which are super hard. I finally understand all that stuff, and I just thought..." Her voice trailed off.

Neil glanced aside, clearly uncomfortable and reluctant.

Before he could openly refuse, Claire blurted, "Neil. The thing is, after what you did for me, I'm beholden to you."

His eyes returned to hers, and he shrugged, his grin back. "All right, Brennan, you're on. We'll try it and see how it goes. But only because you said beholden."

At lunch, Claire finally had a chance to talk to Alec. They were sitting at their usual table on the upper terrace with Brian and Erica. Alec was tense and quiet, concentrating on his chicken stir-fry.

"Alec," Claire said apologetically, "when I was telling you earlier about getting into Concert Singers, I didn't get a chance to say the most important part. It never would have happened if you hadn't encouraged me to sing with you yesterday. I'm really grateful to you for that. I really enjoyed it. Singing with you, I mean. And I'm sorry if I abandoned you afterward when we got interrupted. I didn't mean to."

Alec looked at her in surprise and seemed to relax a notch. "Don't worry about it," he intoned softly.

"Claire said you have a great voice, Alec," Erica put in. "I hope you try out for the Homecoming a.s.sembly."

"What? They're having musical acts this year?" Brian asked. "How do you know?"

"Because ... drum roll, please?" Erica said with a dramatic pause. "I have just signed up to be on the Homecoming Committee."

"You?" Claire retorted. "On a committee? Are you on crack?"

"College admissions people place a great deal of emphasis on extracurricular activities," Erica said. "And it sounds fun. Homecoming is only a month away, and we just had our first meeting. We decided to have performances at the a.s.sembly, along with the usual carnival, football game, and ... dance. Which-might I add-I insist we attend this year."

"Go to a dance?" Brian made a face. "But we've avoided those so successfully thus far."

"Brian, you only hate dances because you don't have the nerve to ask anyone," Claire said.

"Oh, like you're the expert," he retorted. "How many have you been to?"

"Zero," Claire admitted, blushing a little. "But only because no one ever asked me."

"Wait. Could someone please explain this to the foreigner?" Alec inserted. "Isn't Homecoming supposed to be for visiting alumni? What's this dance about?"

"The dance is the one thing that's for us," Erica explained. "It's our first opportunity of the year to agonize about getting a date, buy an expensive dress, cheer as the most popular kids get crowned king and queen, and dance to ridiculously loud music in a gym filled with helium balloons and crepe paper."

"Well, I wouldn't want to miss that," Alec said with a smile.

It was the first time Claire had seen Alec smile all day, and she realized he was suddenly gazing at her. The look in his eyes was so warm, it made her stomach flutter, as if a rush of a hundred b.u.t.terflies had taken wing. She smiled back, wondering what she should say to get Alec talking more. Just then, she heard a voice over her shoulder.

"Brennan? So this is where you four hide out for lunch. Nice spot. Great view."

Claire sprang out of her seat. "Neil! Good timing. I just finished eating." To the others she said, "Excuse me, guys. I'll catch up with you later. Neil and I are going to work on Spanish. Where do you want to sit, Neil?"

"You're the boss. Would you prefer a cubicle in the house of knowledge?" Neil gestured to the library. "Or as they say in Spain, tutoring alfresco?"

"Over there will do just fine," Claire replied, pointing to a nearby bench on the terrace, "and alfresco is Italian, actually."

Neil shrugged with a light, self-effacing chuckle. As he and Claire walked off, she thought she caught a look of frustration and disappointment on Alec's face-or did she imagine it?

The tutoring session went well. Claire coached Neil on all the things the teacher had promised would be on next week's quiz. By the time they finished, he seemed to have a better grasp of the material.

"Thanks, Brennan," Neil said as they put their notebooks away. "I'm glad you twisted my arm about this. It p.i.s.ses me off that I suck at Spanish, since I'm halfway decent at everything else."

"Aw," Claire responded lightly as she zipped up her backpack. "He's as modest as he is pretty." The moment the words left her mouth, Claire thought she'd melt into the ground with embarra.s.sment. Had she actually said that out loud? She felt a tug on the end of her ponytail, and glanced up to find Neil grinning at her with a mischievous glint in his eyes. She'd seen that look before with people he was close to and was thrilled that he was using it with her now.

"Pretty, eh?" He chuckled.

"Well, studly seemed a bit over the top." She couldn't believe she was talking to him like this, as if they'd been friends for years.

"Fair enough," he said with an approving nod. "I'll take pretty. You can be studly."

Had Neil just implied that he thought she was pretty? As Claire struggled for some kind of witty reply, the bell rang, ending the lunch period. They both stood up from the bench.

"What do you say we do this again tomorrow-after school?" Neil added. "Maybe in the Student Life Center?"

"Sure. I usually have to wait about an hour for my mom to pick me up, anyway."

"Cool. See you later." Neil waved as he headed off.

As Claire watched him go, she felt another tug on her ponytail, causing her to jump.

"Isn't there a law," Erica said, "against tutors fraternizing with their students?"

Claire gave her friend a faux shocked look. "We were hardly fraternizing."

Erica just smiled. "If you say so."

Over the next couple of days, Neil showed vast improvement during their after-school tutoring sessions. Claire grew more and more comfortable around him and wasn't tongue-tied anymore in his presence. She loved Concert Singers. Her year of piano lessons helped her to sight-read the music with ease, and she fit right in with the more experienced students, as if she'd been doing this for years. She found herself singing in the shower and while doing the dishes. If only she'd had the nerve to try her voice years earlier, instead of being so shy about it!

To Claire's disappointment, however, Alec was quiet and standoffish. He didn't sit at their table at lunch, and when she saw him in cla.s.s, he didn't speak to her. She didn't run into him again with his guitar, and he was never at their locker at the same time she was. Was he just the loner type, or was he angry and purposely avoiding her? When she'd apologized that day at lunch, she'd thought-hoped-she'd smoothed things over with him. His behavior hurt more than she cared to admit.

Alec wasn't the only one acting peculiar that week. Twice, while Claire was doing homework in her room, her mom stopped in the doorway to silently stare at her, then walked off without a word.

On Thursday night, her mom finally spoke. "So! Claire ... how was your day?"

Claire glanced up from the calculus problems she was working on. "Fine."

"How's choir going?"

"Good."

Silence ensued. Why was her mom looking at her like that? Claire wondered self-consciously. She felt like a piece of produce her mom was inspecting for possible defects before purchase.

"You've seemed a little ... preoccupied the past few days," her mom said at last. "Is there anything you'd like to talk about?"

"No."

"Has anything ... unusual been going on lately?" Her mom was clearly fishing.

Claire sighed. It wasn't like she could tell her mom, of all people, about the weird visions she'd been having. "Mom, I've got a lot of homework."

"Okay! Just ... keep studying. I'll call you when dinner's ready."

Friday was a shorter day at Emerson. Although Claire had been dreading the week culminating in another one of Mr. Patterson's belittling lectures, there was no way she could've antic.i.p.ated what would happen at the end of the period.

In her hands, she now held her history paper-the paper she'd stayed up most of Monday and Tuesday nights writing-which Patterson had already graded and returned with lightning efficiency. It was littered with red marks, and at the top of the paper was a thick, rosy D, accompanied by a note: "Eschew prolixity."

D. Claire felt the hot threat of tears behind her eyes. She'd never gotten anything below a B in her life. Patterson couldn't find fault with her grammar, she knew, or her historical accuracy-but clearly he thought she'd been too wordy. Entire paragraphs had been red-lined, and the pages were full of comments like: "Awkward," "Why?" "Unsubstantiated," "Get to the point."

"I figured," Mr. Patterson drawled as he finished handing out the papers, "since I gave you only two days to write these, it was only fair to return them two days later. You're welcome."

The bell rang, signaling the end of the school day. Claire stuffed her book and paper into her backpack, her lips trembling. How would this grade affect her scholarship? She felt Alec's eyes on her but was too mortified to look in his direction. She hurried up to the front of the room. "Excuse me, Mr. Patterson. Can I talk to you for a second?"

Mr. Patterson didn't even turn to face her. "No time. Week's over. See you Monday." Abruptly, he left the room.

Shocked by his coldness, Claire trudged out the door. To her surprise, Alec was waiting for her.

"I saw your grade. I'm sorry," he said gently.

It was the first time he'd spoken to her in days. The sympathy in his voice and the kind look in his eyes-which she hoped implied that he wasn't angry with her anymore, if he ever had been-unleashed the tears that Claire had been holding back. "I worked really hard on that paper," she said brokenly as she and Alec moved down the path. "It wasn't Shakespeare, but it didn't deserve a D."

"A lot of kids got Ds. The guy behind me got an F."

"Really? What did you get?"

Alec looked self-conscious. He silently formed an "A" with his fingers.

His admission cheered her somehow. "You must be the only human being alive who's embarra.s.sed about getting an A."

"I just feel bad." He shrugged. "Mr. Patterson seems to think he has to humiliate students to get results."

"Ds are so confusing. It's like you didn't pa.s.s, but you didn't fail, either." Claire wiped tears from her cheeks and took a deep breath. "Please don't think I'm crying because I'm some ubernerd who needs to get As on everything to feel validated. It's because of my scholarship. It requires a 3.8 GPA."

"3.8? Wow. That must be difficult to maintain."

"You have no idea. I have to work my a.s.s off. I'm not a genius like you."

"I'm not a genius," he protested.

"It's not open for debate. I've heard you in cla.s.s. Calculus, English, history, whatever. You always know the answers to everything. You speak Spanish better than Senora Guiterez."

He blushed. "Maybe I ... should've taken a different language."

"You think?" Claire teased. They'd reached their locker now. As Alec dialed the combination, she continued, "Anyway, all the hard work is worth it. I love it here. I'd do anything to stay at Emerson. That's why I basically have no life. Well, that and the fact that my mom is an overprotective worrywart who watches over my every move."

"That doesn't sound so bad."

"What? That my mom never lets me go anywhere?"

He opened his mouth to reply, but just then Brian and Erica descended on them.

"Wha.s.sup, peoplez?" Brian crowed. "Anybody hungry?"

"You'd better be," Erica chimed in. "It's Friday! I'm taking us all to Venice Beach for empanadas, maintenant. That's French for now, in case you were wondering."

"Neil's coming with us," Brian added. "He's waiting down by the circle."

Claire saw Alec's smile fade at the mention of Neil's name, but he didn't comment.

"Have you ever had an empanada?" Claire asked Alec, as they finished retrieving their books and headed toward the library stairwell.

"Are we always going to play the 'Has Alec Eaten This?' game?" he asked quietly.

Claire worried that she'd offended him, until she saw a good-natured smile tug at his lips. "I'm just curious. I mean, after the pizza thing-I've never met anyone before who hadn't-"

"Let's put it this way," Alec interjected. "If it's fried, fattening, caffeinated, alcoholic, or high in sugar content, it's safe to a.s.sume that I rarely eat it-or have never tried it."

Claire stared at him. "Why?"

"Are your parents fitness freaks, or do they just hate you?" Erica said.

Alec stiffened visibly. "They just followed a healthy lifestyle, which I continue to embrace. But they ... died when I was young."

Erica went red in the face. A silence fell.

"Way to go, Erica," Brian said, clapping. "That was awkward."

"I'm sorry." Claire felt terrible.

"Me too." Erica looked at her feet.