The next day was Sunday, so I had all day long to be lectured by Caelyn.
When I padded down the stairs, as late in the morning as I dared, I stopped halfway down. I could hear her on the phone.
"Well, you'll be lucky if I don't press charges! Your daughter almost killed mine!!" I'd never heard her voice so full of malevolence. I could only surmise it must've been Katie Parker's mother at the other end of the conversation.
Mom seemed to be listening then, only answering with a clipped "Mmm-hmm," now and then. She finished with a "You can bet we will be!" before she slammed the phone so hard against something I heard a sharp crack. Surely that hadn't been her beloved cell.
I waited a full minute before continuing my way down to the living room. When I hit the creaky stair, she asked, "Maura, is that you finally?"
I hadn't slept in. In fact, I'd slept very little the night before. The only thing that had gotten me through the sleepless hours was remembering all the parts that happened after I'd woken up in his arms—that and playing Final Fantasy for nearly the last seven hours.
I answered her by walking into the kitchen. "Morning," I said meekly.
"You'd better get dressed," she instructed, examining my still-pajama-clad body. "We're going to have company."
"Huh?" I started to have the first twinges of dread creep into my stomach. I prayed our visitor would have nothing to do with the phone conversation she'd just had.
She grimaced. "Katie is coming over to apologize." She muttered something else under her breath, but I was too shell-shocked to pay attention after that first part.
"No…way…Mom! I'm not ready to see her…to see any of them! I don't want to…"
She was furiously banging around the kitchen then; a skillet was slammed down onto the eye of the stove. Caelyn was making breakfast? I'd figured my lie would've earned me permanent household-chore duty…even if I already did most of them anyway. My wonder was cut short, though, when she turned back to me, furious.
"Maura, that is the least that girl can do. Let her lose some of that pride by being forced to apologize…to start. She ought to be groveling at your feet, praying I don't have her hauled off on attempted murder charges!" Caelyn's eyes flashed in a dangerous way.
I knew I wouldn't dissuade her, but I had to add, "You know she won't mean it."
"We'll see about that. Now, please, go get dressed. I want you to have time to eat before that little…before they show up."
As I was turning to go up the stairs, knowing full well Caelyn was waaaaay too angry to argue with, I saw her haul eggs and a sirloin out of the fridge. Hmm, if delicious food became part of being punished, I'd have to misbehave more often.
As amazing as the breakfast tasted, that was just how uncomfortable the "apology," if you could call it that, went. Just being in front of Katie brought the whole night back, but for Caelyn's sake I focused my eyes on one of the knickknacks in the living room and pretended the horrible girl wasn't in my house. It was all I could do not to bolt and race up the stairs to the sanctuary of my room, but I knew down deep that my behaving like a coward would only become another victory for the nasty cheerleader and her friends.
Katie's mother was an older, more stern….and wrinkled….version of Katie. Well, Katie with a tightly-wound blonde knot on the back of her head, instead of the perky ponytail. The leathery texture of her skin screamed she'd seen the inside of a tanning bed a few too many times and made me feel suddenly lucky I had such a strong aversion to UVs. Katie's own tanned skin said she was perfectly happy to follow in her mother's damaging footsteps, even with such a useful peek at the future consequences. I could tell the woman didn't have an ounce of remorse over what her demon spawn had done to me. I knew she was only here out of fear inspired by Caelyn's threat to press charges.
When they left, I was released from the greatest tension I'd ever felt in my life, heading up to my room to cry out the memories Katie's face had brought back, out of sight of my well-intending mother. And the fact that Katie's face had been beet red, that her voice had caught and faltered numerous times…well, that hadn't helped me feel one tiny bit better.
As hard as it would be to believe, I still wished for Monday to come. Katie and her clan would be lost among the sea of almost eight-hundred other faces. I knew I could ignore them easily amid teachers and lessons to concentrate on. And he would be there. Sunday seemed very long and uninteresting without Ron around. I wondered how he could so quickly have made such an important place for himself within my inexperienced heart. Caelyn watched my restless cleaning and later, during TV time, clock watching with suspicion in her eyes. I tried to be as casual as possible, but I felt like my eyes were bugging out of my head with anticipation.
Finally, it was time to shut them and leave the world of the wakeful for a few numb, unknowing hours. Somehow, after the morning rush to get ready, I ended up at school. Caelyn must have really put a scare into Katie. Neither she nor Wendy showed up for school. Trent kept a careful distance, literally turning and walking in the opposite direction when he saw me. All in all, not a bad day…especially the part where I ended up standing before him after the mandatory part of the day was over.
I was still at a loss as to how I should thank Ron for saving me the other night. I looked up at him with what I knew must be a dumbfounded expression. "D-do you want to come over?" As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew I'd made a mistake. If Caelyn came home and found us there alone together, she'd have kittens all over the carpet. At the same time, it was just too cruel to be grounded and lose any possible time I had left to be with him—sure, why not set myself up for unavoidable heartbreak? Stupid, stupid, stupid…
He beamed a soft, honest smile. "Sure!"
I gulped. What had I done?
We walked out toward the parking lot. Was he going to ride the bus with me? No, he kept walking past the line of them parked in front of the school. He must've driven to school every day. I felt so childish, even though I rationalized he was almost two years older than me, and it was only normal for him to be a step ahead of me in that respect.
He smiled that gentle smile of his over his shoulder and reached back to grab my hand. I felt my face flush. Oh god, a boy liked me. The fact was still so hard to comprehend. My heart was beating so fast my chest hurt. Even with my body assaulting me—and just because he held my hand—I was still nursing that worry in a corner of my mind. The nagging thought his trip to the jewelry store had given birth to. Was he betraying someone else when he was with me? Or was my overactive imagination running away with itself and reading more into his intentions toward me than what was really there? I didn't have anything to compare those feelings to, so I wasn't quite sure if he liked me like I thought he liked me.
I tried to stop the incoherent tumble of thoughts through my head as he, once again, opened my door for me. I paused a minute to look at him. His eyes were full of light, a sparkling darkness I felt like I could fall into. The way he returned my gaze was so intense. I couldn't help it when the thought he might have someone else he looked at in the same way crept to the front of my mind.
"I don't," he seemed to suddenly whisper to me, though his lips barely moved.
I broke the gaze, then, blinking rapidly. "Did you just say something?"
He looked a little dazed himself. "I-I don't think I did…"
I got into the car quickly. My weirdness had scared off enough people. I didn't want him to become yet another one of my lost causes.
I flipped my hair around and bent my head slightly forward so that my face was hidden as he eased into the car. My cheeks burned as I wondered what he thought about what had just passed between us.
As usual—it seemed to be a talent of his—Ron had me feeling at ease very quickly. He started the engine and then reached down to dig through his CDs as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened at all. Maybe I was making too much of the whole thing…
But it really did seem like I'd just pulled an answer out of him and to an unspoken question, no less. And he didn't even realize he'd answered that question afterward.
The stress of moving had to be getting to me. I hadn't been sleeping more than four or five hours each night after Caelyn had told me about the move. After the awfulness at the bridge, that amount had dwindled to even less. I'd spent most of the previous night wandering around fighting monsters in Final Fantasy VIII or Googling poetic phrases, trying to find interesting music to download. Yeah, that was it. I just needed to rejuvenate my weary brain cells with a good night's sleep.
I smiled as I settled on that line of reasoning and thought I caught Ron's posture relax out of the corner of my eye. Was he that attuned to my feelings? For someone who had only caught notice of me a little more than a week ago, that seemed unrealistic.
*Okay, that's it! You are going to bed early tonight,* I promised myself.
"I love this game!" He reached down to pick up the jewel case. A ripple of pleasure traveled through me at finding he liked something I did.
"Is it in your PlayStation?"
"It sure is!"…then my momentary glee faded.
He bent to turn on the TV and game system.
"Do you want to see my game collection?" I asked, desperate to drag him away from the screen. I paused, half in horror, half in fascination, as the opening movie scene played. Wincing as Squall's blood was drawn, feeling a rush at the sight of Rinoa's angel wings. When the segment ended, and the game started, though, I tried to distract him again.
"Come look at this!" I commanded in a panic-laced voice.
He turned to look at me and narrowed his eyes. My eyes drifted back toward the graphics…then back to his face. He didn't miss that. He grinned slightly and started to move the character around with the controller.
"We can do something else," I almost shrieked.
"Nah, I think I want to play this for a bit." Dammit.
Then Rinoa spoke to Squall…only I'd gone back and started my game over, entering names of my own choosing for the main characters…so that she then spoke to 'Ron.' Of course, when video-game Ron spoke back, his words were directed to Maura, not Rinoa.
My face grew so hot; I knew my cheeks had to be glowing like a branding iron just taken from the fire. He turned, looked me over, and fought fervently to hold back laughter.
"So, you're naming your video game characters after us?" His face broke into a huge smile. "Nice," he purred the word in a deeper-than-usual voice that made my heart skip a beat.
He kept up the pretense of playing a few minutes more, but I could tell he was preoccupied with something else. He put the controller on the edge of my moon-and-star patterned comforter and walked over to me. The thought that I was alone…in my bedroom…with a boy who made my heart sprint in a way that felt unnatural, made me feel a bit overwhelmed. What would he expect we would be doing while my mother was still at work?
"Weren't you going to show me the rest of your games?" He just had a way of settling things, making them comfortable, almost like he knew my worries—offering the perfect solution to push them aside.
"Sure." I was so awestruck by him that I didn't move, even though my games were on a rack across the room.
He put his palm up to my cheek. I felt the skin grow hot, but not because of the temperature of his skin. My lips popped apart to allow for the increase in my breathing. That seemed to make him uncomfortable. He tore his eyes away from mine and looked around my room. I thought he must be looking for the games I'd failed to show him, but his gaze lingered on my computer. I was painfully aware of the Fate Stay Night screensaver floating across the monitor.
"Ah, an anime fan too, huh?" Another thing in common? That was just too much to hope for.
"Y-yes." I supposed it was also too much to hope for to sound anything near intelligent in his presence.
"I like that one too. Really a surprise about who Saber turns out to be, isn't it?"
Okay, I had to be dreaming. I reached down to pinch the side of my leg. His eyes caught the movement, and he laughed when he saw what I did. Then, his expression twisted into something I couldn't quite translate, passing over his handsome face so quickly. He sauntered easily over to my computer.
"You have any songs on here?" he asked. His love for music was hard to miss.
"You're going to laugh at what a silly question that is," I told him. I joined him at my little pine computer desk and rolled the mouse around until I had the My Documents folder open. I let the cursor hover on the My Music folder until the little information box popped up.
"Wow…forty-three gigs…impressive," he admitted. He laid his hand over mine and took control of the mouse. He clicked down with my finger to open the folder, and together we scrolled through the choices. He created a small playlist in the media player and then walked over to the rack of games and DVD's standing against the far wall. My hand was shaking, I noticed, when I'd removed my fingers from the stability of the mouse.
I didn't know what to say to him next, but my mind was formulating phrases like, "Have you ever thought about moving to Vancouver?"
He was definitely becoming more ingrained in me. I thought of him so often. When I went to sleep at night, he wove his presence into my dreams. Even when I had nightmares about what had happened on Saturday, he always made an appearance at the end to save me, just as he had in real life. He was on my mind when I awoke, wishing he was lying beside me…but only so I could have the depths within his eyes be the first thing I became aware of. At times, over the last forty-eight hours, I'd resolved to be stronger, knowing our separation was inevitable, but that resolve never seemed to stick with me for very long. I guessed I was doomed to know a touch of Caelyn's suffering, despite the fact that I'd decided a long time ago to never let that kind of thing happen to me.
He broke through my silent, meandering thoughts. "You have some real classics here," he noted. My choices seemed to please him. He was holding my copy of Lunar: Silver Star Story. He knew of that game?
"Have you ever played it?" I asked, disbelieving.
"Oh yeah." He spoke as if there could be no way he hadn't. "This is one of the best games ever."
"It's my second favorite," I said.
"Oh…then I guess your first is?" He inclined his head toward my PlayStation.
I blushed again and nodded. I still couldn't believe how boneheaded I'd been to forget about renaming my characters like that…and actually allowing him to get anywhere near the controller.
He did grin again, at my embarrassment I surmised, but he switched gears and asked, "What do you think about VII?"
"Oh! I love Sepiroth!"
"You like the bad guy?" His eyebrows shot up in surprise.
"There's just something…sad about him…and his hair is really cool," I added sheepishly.
"So, you like guys with long hair, huh?" He'd put the game back on the shelf and was walking back toward me. I couldn't hear the song playing on the computer speakers anymore. There was an electric kind of buzzing inside my head.
"Mm-hmm," was all I managed.
He kept walking until he stood right in front of me. "Do you like me?"
He was very direct, but the manner suited him. I still gulped. "Of course." I'd gone and done it. What good could come out of such a proclamation?
He moved on, almost like I hadn't said anything. He didn't visibly react in any way to my confession. "How strict do you think your mother is going to be with this grounding thing?"
"Very," I admitted. In the moment that knowledge bothered me…a lot.
The corners of his smile turned down. He took my hand into one of his and my heart sped. "That's too bad; I was going to ask you to prom."
Ugh. Being around all those phonies at school, clad in a ridiculously overdone dress. Any kind of formal dance definitely wasn't my idea of a good time.
"I really didn't want to go anyway." I could see him search my face to determine whether that was the truth, or if I was just trying to let him down easy.
I continued quickly, so he wouldn't get the wrong idea. "Besides, that is a nighttime activity. If we want to…get around Mom's restrictions, we'll have to find things to do while she's at work."
"So, you want to cut more classes?" He grinned at me. Relief had flooded his features when I'd mentioned that I wanted to do other things—besides prom—with him.
Hmmm, I'd actually been thinking of making the most of the three hours we'd have after school…but as long as I was in trouble anyway… "Sure." I grinned back conspiratorially.
"What should we do first?" he asked eagerly.
"Well…I have to get started on dinner. Now is definitely not the time to make her suspicious at all."
He pulled at me then, towing me toward the kitchen. "Great! I'll help."