Falling (12 page)

“Fine,” I said absently. “Don’t eat all the cheese.”

“No, really,” he pressed. “Was everybody bugging you?”

“A little.”

“I told them to be nice to you,” he said.

That explained it. “You don’t have to do that, Linc; they’re your friends, not mine.”

“Makeup!” he suddenly burst out. “You’re wearing makeup, aren’t you?”

I made a face at him. “Right, cause I even own makeup.” My hands started shaking as I layered noodles into the pan. If anybody would notice a difference in me it would be Lincoln.

He was still peering at me. “Oh. It just looks like you have blush on, or mascara or something.”

“Pretty sure those are two totally different things,” I said. “Besides, maybe I just look a little different because you haven’t really seen me in two weeks,” I lied with a little pang of guilt.

Lincoln just shrugged and wandered off to the living room but I was starting to panic. Was Jack right? Was Jordan doing something to change how I looked?

I dumped the rest of the cheese in the pan, threw it in the oven and ran to the bathroom. I flicked on all the lights and looked into the mirror. Nothing seemed any different. I leaned over the counter, looking closely at my eyes and cheeks. Same brown eyes, same pinkish skin. Even the hair falling in my face was the same darkish, blah color.

I turned my face to the left and the right, ran my fingers through my hair and stared at myself two inches from the mirror. Whatever Jack and Lincoln were seeing, I thankfully didn’t.

Satisfied, I went back into the kitchen to finish dinner.

Everyone enjoyed it, Lincoln especially. Even my dad was in a good mood despite getting a call from the school.

After dinner, I dutifully did the dishes and put the food away. It should have been a relaxing night, reading some of my favorite short stories on the opposite side of the couch where Linc was trying to catch up on his missed school work. Even Grandma was peaceful, casually flipping through her cookbooks over and over again.

But I wanted to see Jordan again and wanting to see him was scaring me. I still wasn’t completely convinced I hadn’t had a psychiatric break and was a newly minted schizophrenic.

Just thinking about how sweet he had been the night before made my face flush. But he wasn’t human and I didn’t know him, part of me argued. Most of me agreed. But still, I couldn’t help but glow over the idea that a guy like that wanted to get to know a girl like me. If I didn’t know it was impossible, I would think he had a crush on me. That thought caused my face to catch fire and I hid behind my book, praying Lincoln wouldn’t notice.

I certainly didn’t have a crush on him. Boys and dating weren’t really my thing. I had never had a boyfriend, never been on a date and never even had a guy interested in me. And when I was interested in someone all I was able to do around them was blush and stutter. And I didn’t do that around Jordan. Well, not as much as usual.

I looked up from staring at my book to see Lincoln staring at me. “What?” I asked defensively.

He just shrugged and went back to his school work. I flipped a page to keep up my pretense of reading.

I didn’t even bother trying to focus on the words, just went right to analyzing every word Jordan had ever said to me. I knew he wasn’t interested in me; he had made it pretty clear he was just looking for someone’s brain to pick. And that was pretty much the only reason any guy ever talked to me, they needed help with homework or wanted to be in my group for group projects.

And then there was his admission of spying. Part of me knew that was creepy but another part was a little flattered he was so curious about me. And it was nice to think one person, or not-person, thought my vibrant dreams were interesting and not just weird.

And he had hugged me. Just thinking about it made warm flutters explode in stomach. I tried to push them back down. A hug didn’t mean anything, maybe he was just a nice person. Well, not a person exactly.

“Hello?” Lincoln yelled, pulling my book down.

“What?” I snapped, willing my cheeks to return to their normal color.

“Geesh, did you not hear me tell you ten times Grandma wanted to go to bed?”

“Sorry,” I muttered, getting off the couch.

Getting Grandma into bed was easy for once and I jumped into my own as soon as heard her snores.

I lay in bed forever, looking at the bright blue numbers on my alarm clock and glowing orange street lamp outside one of my windows. I didn’t even notice when I finally drifted off, just suddenly realized I had been hearing a fire burning for some time.

EXCITED AND NERVOUS, I OPENED my eyes to find Ash peering at me. “What?” I snapped, not for the first time that day. Or night? I tried to figure out my days and nights while Ash continued to look at me.

“I think I have found the perfect dress for your hair color,” she said, turning towards the wardrobe. She bent in and pulled out a mossy green dress that crossed over the bust and tied in the back. The overlapping layers in the front tapered to a longer back that would end mid calf. “What do you think?”

“Perfect,” I breathed, not believing I was saying that about a dress.

Ash’s face lit up. “Can I do your hair as well?”

I tried to shrug nonchalantly but really I wanted to look nice for him.

She helped me into the dress and carefully braided my hair around my head, letting the long end sweep over my shoulder. When she sat back satisfied, I leaned in towards the mirror. My hair was definitely a shade more auburn and my eyelashes seemed darker and thicker. I turned my head side to side, noticing a new rosiness in my cheeks that matched a new rosiness in my lips. “Is this how I looked the first time I came here?”

“Of course not, you looked like a petrified albino kitten.”

I snorted at that and she laughed out loud.

“So where are we going tonight?” I asked.

Ash smiled and shook her head, leading me out the door. We went back down to the huge main room and I cringed at having another emotional outburst for everyone to witness. But she breezed right through it, turning left down a dark narrow hall. I followed behind, starting to fear I was going to finally see the dungeon I had been imagining until I began breathing in the most wonderful smells: roasted meats and vegetables, pungent onions and yeasty bread.

The hall opened into a kitchen nearly the size of the main hall. Huge hearths lined one side and massive butcher blocks and marble tables marched down the middle. Surprisingly current stoves ran along the back wall and seated at a giant workspace in front of them was Jordan.

I tried to suppress my smile but couldn’t. Again his answering smile was brilliant and my knees wobbled a little. “Oh come on, get it together,” I mumbled under my breath, still smiling. I was not some adorably klutzy girl in need of a strong man to be my hero, which was a good thing, cause I was pretty sure that was never going to happen for me anyway.

“Still in a good mood?” Jordan asked. Ash had silently disappeared.

“Yeah,” I mumbled, not able to make eye contact.

“I was worried when you left,” he said softly.

I eyed all the produce in the baskets on the countertops. “Um, yeah, sorry about that, I guess I was just having a bad day.”

“Bixby,” Jordan said, grabbing my hand. “You don’t have to be strong for me. I’m not your brother or grandma or dad. I’m just your friend. If you’re having a hard time, I want you tell me, not hide it from me.”

I blinked hard, cursing my leaky eyes. No had ever said anything like that to me, not needed me to do or be something for them since my mom had died. “Thanks. I’m fine today, really. So what’s up with meeting in the kitchen?” I grimaced at my clumsy attempt to change the conversation but Jordan gracefully played along.

“Well, I was hoping you would make me something, if that’s all right. You really seem to love cooking.” I eyed him, wondering what situation he had spied on till I remembered I had actually told him that.

“Okay, what do you want me to make?”

“No, I want you to make me one of your favorites,” he said, leaning back on the tall stool he sat in.

I looked around the kitchen, taking in the foods, the equipment available and thinking through all recipes I had memorized. “Do you have spices?” I finally asked.

He led me to them, small glass jars lined up on tiny shelves taking up an entire wall. Printed on the edge of the shelf beneath each one was the name of the spice above. I looked around again, noting apples and wooden canisters of flour and sugar. “All right, have a seat, let me work
my
magic.”

Jordan smiled and sat back while I gathered the apples and a sharp knife. I worked quietly, getting more nervous as the silence lengthened. Looking up I saw him watching me, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

“What?” I asked, exasperated. Was that only thing I was going to say today?

“Nothing, I just like watching you.” My face flushed and I peeled more furiously, almost slicing off the skin of my thumb. “Careful,” he murmured. “Do I make you nervous?”

“No,” I lied. “Don’t you have some questions you should be asking me?”

“Always.”

“Well, fire away.”

“Fire away?”

“It’s a figure of speech, it means go ahead, ask.”

He rubbed a hand over his chin before asking. “What do you do during the day?”

I looked up, surprised. “Nothing really, my life is pretty boring.”

“Indulge me.”

I sighed. “Okay, well, most days I go to school. Before I leave, I have breakfast with Grandma and make sure she has an easy lunch laid out and things to keep her occupied. She’s usually okay if I leave some laundry and magazines and turn the television to the station she likes.”

Jordan nodded. “I’m familiar with most of those things. What is your schooling like?”

I grimaced and moved on to sifting flour and sugar together. “It’s pretty much everyone my age in town heading to the same building and being stuck there for seven hours while the teachers repeat the same boring stuff over and over.”

“You don’t like school?” he guessed.

“No, it’s not that. I just don’t really get along with the other kids and most of the teachers are pretty apathetic. Mostly, we read a lesson out of a book and then do practice problems or answer questions.”

“You are friends with these other students.”

I cracked an egg over my flour mountain. “Not really. They’re interested in a lot of things that I’m not. So I just do my school work and go home.”

Jordan nodded thoughtfully. “What is a swim team?”

That stirred a little regret. “A group of girls join together and swim in the pool. They practice almost every day and go to things called swim meets and compete against other teams.”

“What are they competing for?”

I smiled at that, surprised by things he wasn’t aware of. “We race each other to see who is the fastest. Each girl has a specialty, like backstroke or freestyle and whoever wins earns points for their team. The team with the most points wins the meet. And then we do it over and over, against different teams. At the end of the season, one team is recognized as the best.”

“Is your team ever the best?”

“Last two years in a row,” I said proudly.

“And what were you best at?”

“Relays and breaststroke.”

“So why did you quit?”

My hands froze over the dough. I didn’t realize he had been listening so closely to me the night before. “My grandma needed me.”

Jordan leaned forward, clearly not satisfied with my answer. “Didn’t she need you before?”

“She got worse after Lincoln died … disappeared.”

“So you must have recently quit?”

I attacked the dough with more force than necessary. “I quit the day he died, or whatever.”

“Why?”

His eyes were glowing, inches from mine as I kneaded the dough. I couldn’t lie to him, I could tell he would know. “I didn’t want to have to be around other people.”

“Wouldn’t that have made the loss of you brother easier?”

His questions were irritatingly pointed.

“Not for me. They wanted to ask questions and talk about it and cry about it and I didn’t.”

Jordan sat back, surprised. “You didn’t cry over your brother?”

“Of course I did,” I snapped. “In private.”

“He really was the only person you had?” he asked wonderingly.

I nodded, trying not to cry again.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly.

“Hey, it wasn’t your fault, right?” I said roughly.

“Right,” he echoed.

I seasoned my apples with spices. “So, what’s your next question?”

“Tell me about your dad.”

I suppressed a groan. “That’s not a question.”

Jordan cocked his head to the side. “What’s your dad like?”