Free Falling (19 page)

“Hey, guys. Good day at school?” She raised one eyebrow at
Zach. “You did go, didn’t you? I didn’t get a call so you must have done.”

He nodded, sighing. “Yes, Olivia, I went. I stayed there all
day like a good little boy, and I didn’t even get in any fights today. Aren’t
you proud of me?” he asked sarcastically.

A fond smile twitched at the corner of her mouth as she
nodded. “I’m so proud of you, Zach,” she replied with fake enthusiasm, holding
her hand over her heart. “I think you deserve a reward for attending a whole
day at school. How about I buy you the GI Joe that you’ve been bugging me to get
you for ages? You know, the one with the interchangeable accessories?” she
suggested teasingly.

I laughed, liking her already.

“Actually, it was the Ken doll I wanted,” he shot back,
playing along. She laughed and reached into her purse, pulling out something
and tossing it to Zach who caught it effortlessly. “Sweet!” he chirped happily.
I looked over curiously to see he was smiling lovingly at a cell phone;
obviously it had been confiscated pending him going to school today.

His aunt looked at me and smiled. “Nice to see you again.
It’s Maisie, isn’t it?”

I nodded, smiling politely. “It’s nice to see you again too,
Mrs Kingston.”

She waved her hand dismissively, making a scoffing sound.
“Don’t call me that, it makes me feel old. Olivia is fine.” Zach pulled open
the fridge; grabbing the orange juice and chugging it straight from the carton
which made his aunt gasp and throw her pen at him. “How many times do I have to
tell you not to drink from the carton?” she cried.

He shrugged, swallowing and putting the juice back in the
fridge. “At least a couple more times,” he replied casually as he wiped his
mouth with the back of one hand. I made a mental note never to drink juice in
his house. He turned to me and smiled. “Want a soda or something?” he asked, pulling
a can of Pepsi from the fridge and passing it to me without waiting for me to
answer.

“You’re a pig,” I scolded, shaking my head at him. He was so
much like Alex that it was unreal; maybe it was a teenage boy thing, though
Zach was nineteen so he wouldn’t even be a teenager for much longer.

He just grinned in response.

“Zach, I bought chicken but they didn’t have breasts like
you wanted, so I had to get strips, that okay?” Olivia asked, looking at him
hopefully.

He shrugged. “Sure, that’ll work,” he answered. He nodded
back to the door we came in through. “Let’s go study then before your colour
coded tutoring schedule becomes irrelevant. We don’t want to run out of time
and have to skip the red section, do we?” he teased, looking at me with mock horror.
He grabbed a pack of cookies and two apples, then ushered me out of the
kitchen.

“What do you want chicken for?” I asked curiously, following
him up the stairs.

“Dinner. Olivia can’t cook, and if she ever does cook, eat
it at your own risk because that crud is toxic,” he replied, shuddering.

I laughed and looked at him to see if he was joking. “You
cook?” That had to be a joke; he couldn’t really cook, surely.

“Yep, pretty freaking awesomely actually,” he boasted. He
shoved open a door at the end of the corridor, exposing the messiest bedroom
I’d ever seen in my life. I stopped, looking at the clothes all over the floor,
the unmade bed, the empty packets and soda cans, the screwed up paper scattered
everywhere. The place was disgusting, and I couldn’t even identify the colour
of his carpet because it was barely visible.

“Seriously? You expect me to tutor you,” I motioned around
the room in disgust, “in here?”

He grinned. “Sure. The crap won’t bite ya,” he joked,
pressing on the small of my back, forcing me step to into the room.

I cringed as my foot collided with what looked like a
half-eaten pie. “Are you positive about that?” I closed my eyes, wishing I was
home already. “New rules, tutoring is always at my place,” I added as an
afterthought.

“Don’t be such a princess,” he scolded, laughing as he
pressed on my back again, making me step deeper into the hazard he called a
bedroom.

I groaned, glancing around again at the room and wincing. It
really was gross. “Do you even have a desk under all that clutter?”

He laughed. “Nope. We’ll have to do it on the bed,” he
replied, and then a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth so I knew he was
thinking about how dirty that sounded in his mind.

“Awesome,” I muttered, tiptoeing over his clothes and
magazines that littered the floor, heading towards his bed. I plopped my bag
down on it as he grabbed the sheets, tugging on them and making it a little
flatter to sit on rather than a bulky quilt pile in the middle where he’d
obviously just gotten up and left it this morning. My eyes raked over his
walls, looking at the posters and clippings he had stuck up. They all seemed to
be of the same guy. “Who’s that?” I asked, squinting at the brown haired guy
that was probably in his late thirties. He looked a little familiar, but I
couldn’t place him.

“Cyril Raffaelli,” he answered as if that made perfect
sense.

I raised one eyebrow in question. “And he would be?”

“The best traceur that ever graced God’s green earth,” he
replied, looking at the poster in awe.

“Tracer? Like detective type thing?” I asked, looking at the
poster again. He didn’t look much like a detective.

Zach burst out laughing and shook his head at me as if I was
stupid. “Traceur,” he corrected as if that slight difference in pronunciation
made all the difference. “It’s someone who practices parkour. He’s a stuntman
and my personal hero,” he explained, plopping down on the bed, watching me.

I blushed, feeling stupid for not knowing that, though why I
would know that in the first place was beyond me. “Oh, the jumping over stuff,”
I replied, nodding, playing dumb.

He grinned and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, the jumping over
stuff.”

“So where do I know him from?” I asked curiously. I knew
nothing of parkour, so it wasn’t from that.

“Movies?” he suggested. “You ever seen District 13?”

“Nope.” I studied the guy again and suddenly it hit me. “Oh
I know! The guy that dives out of the helicopter in Die Hard 4!” I said
excitedly. “I loved that movie. Mostly I loved it when Bruce Willis kicked his
butt.”

He laughed. “That’s him,” he confirmed. “Hey, we should
watch District 13, you’ll love it. It’s French subtitles though, but I bet you
like foreign movies being super brainy and all.”

I frowned as he stood up, heading over to his cupboard and
pulling it open to reveal a shelf jam packed full of DVDs. “Zach, we’re
supposed to be studying,” I reminded him, unzipping my bag and pulling out my
notebook. He sighed, frowning, looking like he would rather be doing anything
other than this. I sat down on his bed and kicked off my shoes, crossing my
legs. “English first?” I suggested.

He groaned and flopped down on his bed face first, burying
his face in the pillow. I ignored his obvious unwillingness and flicked open my
notebook. Big black writing on the first page caught my eye. My mouth dropped
open in shock at the word that was written there, the same word that desecrated
my locker this morning.
‘Bitch
’.
I frowned at it, not knowing how
on earth it had got there. How the heck had someone got hold of my notebook and
written that across my Spanish essay without me even knowing? Why would someone
even do it in the first place? My mind flicked to Sandy again, it had to be
her, I’d humiliated her at the party in front of everyone when I called her a
dirty tramp, and this was probably her revenge so I had to rewrite my
assignment.

My jaw clenched tightly as an acrid taste filled my mouth.
I
really should have taken Zach’s advice before and punched her.
I flicked
through my book to see that almost every page had the same ugly black scrawl on
it, ruining all of my work that I’d done for classes. I spotted my Algebra
notes that I’d made this morning, they’d been ruined too, so that meant that
this had to have been done today, either lunchtime or this afternoon.

Something hit me in the arm, snapping me out of my angry
state. I slammed the book shut, trying not to cry from anger. I wasn’t very
good with emotions; I cried easily, I guess I was a bit of a weakling of sorts.
I looked back at Zach to see he’d hit me in the arm with his book, one eyebrow
raised curiously. “We starting then or what?” he asked.

I gulped, nodding. “Yeah, I guess, sorry,” I muttered.

He cocked his head to the side, looking at me like a curious
puppy. “What’s up?”

I smiled, appreciating the concern in his tone. “Nothing,” I
lied. “Right, so have you read The Crucible?” I asked, motioning towards his
book that was in perfect condition and looked like it hadn’t even been opened.

He smiled sheepishly.
I’ll take that as a no then!
“Sure I have. It was awesome.”

I laughed and rolled my eyes at him. “So there’s no need for
me to go over the general plot with you, right?” I asked, smirking in his direction.

He pursed his lips. “Well, I’d actually like to hear your
take on the plot, just so I can be sure that you appreciated it to its full
potential like I did,” he answered smugly.

I had to laugh; he was actually a pretty funny guy. He
smiled and scooted up next to me, biting into an apple and handing me the other
one as we started going through book step by step.

After an hour later we were doing really well. He was
actually a pretty quick learner, well, when I could keep his mind on task
anyway. His thoughts seemed to wander off a lot and start veering off onto
other things so I had to rein him back in again. I could see why he would have
such a problem with studying on his own, with no one to keep him on track he
was probably doodling in his notebook within ten minutes. But he did seem
willing to learn, which was a good thing.

He threw down his pen suddenly and stood up. “I’m hungry and
I need to start dinner. Want to come and help me?” he asked, looking at me
hopefully.

I shook my head. “No, but I’ll sit there and read to you
while you cook dinner, how about that?” I offered.

He groaned, rolling his eyes. “Isn’t there a movie of this I
could watch instead of reading it?”

I laughed and grabbed my shoes, putting them back on before
I stood up so that my feet didn’t touch anything rancid that was on his floor.
“Two movies actually, but they both sucked, so read the book,” I instructed.

As it turns out, I didn’t get much reading done while he
cooked, because his aunt was still sitting up the table, and she could probably
talk the hind legs off of a donkey. My head was spinning as she talked on and
on, but she was an extremely nice person. Her and Zach seemed to get on really
well, the conversation bounced back and forth while he prepared a homemade
chicken pot pie. When the front door opened, Olivia bounced out of her seat and
headed into the other room eagerly, talking to someone.

Zach frowned and shoved a large ceramic dish into the stove,
then washed his hands. “That’ll be done in an hour. You want to stay for
dinner?” he offered.

“Er…”

“You might as well stay; you’ll be here still anyway. I’ll
just drive you home after,” he suggested, shrugging casually.

I chewed on my lip. “Okay, sure. I guess I can put your
cooking skills to the test then, huh?”

He nodded, seeming pretty proud of himself. “You’ll love
it.” He nodded to the hallway, signalling for me to go first as usual.

“How do you know how to cook then?” Not many guys knew how
to cook; especially not things like a pot pie. Alex wouldn’t have a clue where
to start with that - then again, Alex burned grilled cheese.

“My dad taught me, he liked to cook,” he replied shrugging.
My ear picked up on the past tense of that statement. My mind was whirling,
wondering again why he was living with his aunt and not his parents. “You going
or what?” he asked, motioning towards the hallway again because I hadn’t
started walking because I was trying to work out his past.

I nodded and headed into the hallway, seeing Olivia standing
with a blond stocky guy who was probably in his late forties. Olivia smiled
warmly. “Maisie, this is my husband, Alan. Alan, this is Zach’s tutor, Maisie.”
She waved a hand between us in introduction.

He nodded in acknowledgement, looking a little bored as he
threw his keys onto the sideboard. “Tutor, like that’s worth it,” he muttered
under his breath.

I felt the frown pull at my forehead. “It’s nice to meet
you, Mr Kingston.” I forced my tone to be polite like I was always taught, but
the hard expression on his face wasn’t very welcoming at all.

“Alright, Uncle Alan?” Zach chirped sarcastically from
behind me.

The guy’s eyes flicked to Zach, a scowl slipping onto his
face. “Go to school today or did you make your aunt cry again?” he barked.

I flinched from his hard tone, shifting on my feet as Zach
pushed me towards the stairs, his face mirroring the hard expression of his
uncle’s. “I went,” he spat. “We’re going to study.” Alan made a scoffing sound
in the back of his throat as Zach forced me to walk up the stairs, his whole
body tense.

I tried to pretend like I couldn’t hear Alan talking to
Olivia as we walked away. “Waste of freaking money. A tutor, really? Like that
kid will ever graduate, he’s a fucking waster,” Alan growled.

“He is not a waster! He just needs some extra help, that’s
all,” Olivia hissed.

I cringed at how uncomfortable this situation was as they
then started having a full blown argument at the bottom of the stairs about how
Zach was a useless sponger and was ruining everything, that Alan didn’t want
him here, and that he made everything hard, that they were already struggling
with money and Zach was just a deadbeat kid who’d never amount to anything.
Olivia was arguing back that he was family and that she’d never abandon him. By
the time we got into Zach’s room, they were practically screaming at each
other.