The Forgotten Fairytales (8 page)

“How can she not have an identity?” Jen whispered to Danielle.

Despite my refusal to believe this storybook mumbo-jumbo, the thought of being a nobody haunted me. Not that labels were my thing—jocks, cheerleaders, theatre freaks, band nerds, etc—but people always had one. It was their identity, what put them with people of similar interests. I guess I was always one of those people who thought everyone should be one family, minus the label. Who’s to say that jocks and theatre peeps couldn’t have similar interests? I mean, I watched Glee. They intermingled. Granted, there were slushies involved but still. It could happen. But there was a difference now. I didn’t fit anywhere.

For a moment, I wondered if that’s what April felt like all the time. An unknown. Unwanted. What a miserable feeling to have every day.

After the nurse released me yesterday, I skipped the rest of my classes and went to sleep, waking up this morning to Danielle ripping the covers off and insisting I get up. I almost hit her. I am not a morning person, even less after yesterday.

Walking through the halls, people stared at me like I had seven heads. Even now, in class, all the stupid princess posse did was obsess. And Jen was the worst, popping her gum and talking trash about me. I was seconds from jumping over the desk and strangling her.

“Maybe she’s a candlestick,” Jen grinned. “That’d explain why she has no shape.”

The tips of my nails dug into my palms. Then the bell rang, and I let out the breath I’d been holding for the last ten minutes. I had plenty of shape. My hips were my favorite feature.

I swung my bag over my shoulder and walked out the door and into the courtyard. Sneakers skidded across the floor, people ran toward the cafeteria.
Where do I belong now?
Not that I thought I had a place, but in a school where people were put into groups by their rank and classification and me, being the one who belonged nowhere, I found the task of sitting at a table more daunting than ever before. The truth was I didn’t want to sit with Danielle.

“Well, if it isn’t the girl who can’t be named.”

The irritation Danielle and her posse gave me was nothing compared to Wolf. A lazy smile played at the edge of his mouth. Gosh, he had that whole smoldering, grunge-look down to a science. When was the last time he shaved?

“You again?”

Waves of brown hair fell along his face as he tipped his head back and soaked up the slight sunshine.

“Were you expecting someone else?”

“No.” I grinned, latching onto the strap of my bag as I walked over to him, like a magnet being pulled forward without any control. “Then again, no one stalks me but you.”

He barked a laugh, one that made chills run up my spine and down my arms. It was deep and full. “What can I say? You’re kind of like a science experiment gone wrong.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Am I supposed to know what that means?”

In the time it took me to blink, he closed the space between us and latched on to my arm, turning it over to my bare forearm. His warm skin hummed against mine, heightening all my nerves with one single touch. I sucked in a sharp breath, unable to back up, though I should have.

“It’s true,” he murmured. His thumb trailed over my bare flesh where the quill had burned me. There was no trace of the damage, no trace of the nightmare that was yesterday.

“They’ve never
not
classified someone.” His eyes bolted to mine. The flecks of gold brightened, dimming the scarlet ring around his iris. He cocked his head to one side like a puppy. “You’re going to be trouble, aren’t you?”

“I’m not anything.”

“I think we both know that’s not true.”

Nothing came out when I opened my mouth. No sound, no air. The world slowed, dimming around us as we stared at one another, connecting on a level far away, making little to no sense. For a moment, I wondered if we were speaking. My heart surged forward, beating inside my chest at a pace I’d never experienced.

The conversation outside the infirmary replayed once more, as it had last night and most of the morning. I wanted to ask Wolf what it meant, but why? We didn’t know each other beyond our strange encounters. Yet in that brief moment in time, my heart expanded, ready to spill the secrets and fears of my soul.

I was ready to lay it all out, like two old friends catching up, but we weren’t friends and we definitely didn’t know one another before this school. Yet something called out to me, tugging at my heart strings, begging for more. His thumb trailed over my skin, leaving behind a warm, tingling sensation.

Blinking fast, Wolf released me and stepped back, blowing out a heavy breath. He blinked again, confusion tightening his brows as we stared at each other. But this time was different. He looked at me unsure of the moment that had passed between us.

“Hey you.”

The voice sounded like it came through a tunnel. My hand, which once held a tight fist, loosened, unable to keep the tension any longer. I cocked my head to the side where Finn stood, staring back and forth at Wolf and I. Even though Wolf had stepped back, we were still close.

“Wolf.” Finn nodded politely and turned back to me. “You okay, Norah? You look kind of pale.”

My breaths came out slow and shaky. Without a good-bye, Wolf stalked off, into the trees outlining the courtyard. “Yeah. I’m fine.” A little too much bite in my tone.

Finn blanched, and weakness spread through me like a vicious virus. So, so weird.

“Was he bothering you?”

“No, we were talking.” I pushed the weirdness aside and smiled at Finn. I hadn’t seen him all day and until now, I forgot how lovely of a smile he had, like sunshine wrapped in two dimples.

“Okay. Do you have lunch plans?”

“Not at all.”

His smile widened. “Come with me.”

I followed him down one of the paths leading away from the school. Small chirps and the gentle sound of wind slipping through wet leaves relaxed me, reminding me of better days. Summer, spring, sunshine.

We stopped in front of weathered building, missing a roof. The walls were jagged and broken, nothing but leftover parts of what used to be. I imaged the structure would have been round, almost tower like, but not more than one story. The bricks were a soft beige, mold and dead foliage stuck between the rotting layers.

Finn stepped forward, brushing away the mass of vines and wilted leaves to unveil a wooden door. The muscles in his back flexed through his sweater as he pushed the door open. Once more the image of him shirtless came to mind. Hopefully they were wrong about him and his drinking. He didn’t seem drunk to me and I had yet to smell alcohol on his breath.

The garden was more brown than green, the skeleton of something that had once been beautiful. The stale breeze stirring the dead leaves was the only sound. No birds, no insects buzzing, no clatter of students, even the noise of my shoes sinking into the dry soil sounded out of place in the silence.

“How did you find this?” I asked.

“My mom and her friends used to hide here and exchange their deepest secrets. This was the only place in the castle no one watched.”

Finn walked to one wall and swept aside a mass of vines, exposing the names carved into the stone. EM + NAT BEST FRIENDS.

A grim smile spread over my lips. It must’ve been nice, having something to remind him of his mom. I had nothing except my reflection in the mirror. Hints of the genetic makeup of a person I never knew. Leaning back, I slid down the wall and exhaled. What a great friendship that must’ve been, one so permanent you felt the need to carve it in stone. I never had that.

“This has always been a secret of mine. “ Finn sat beside me. His attention was off in the distance; following the vines to the small opening at the top where I imagined birds flew in and out of during the spring. “I come here when I want to escape, clear my head.”

My eyes closed and I imagined myself lying on the beach in Monte Carlo, sipping some fruity concoction from a fancy glass while flipping through magazines I didn’t understand. What I wouldn’t give to be there again, to be anywhere with my dad. I missed him so, so much.

“Tell me what’s bothering you.”

“How do you know something’s bothering me?” I asked.

“I can tell. Spill it.”

“Besides the whole classification drama?” I shifted onto the ground and stared at the wall, focusing in on the cracks in the foundation. “My sister is ignoring me and I’m dying to talk to my Dad. I went to the office this morning to sign up on the call log, but they told me I had to come back after classes. This is the longest we’ve gone without a single word.”

“You two are close?”

“He’s always been my best friend.” A chasm spread through my chest, opening wider the more I thought of him.

His thick brows furrowed. “You didn’t have friends back home?”

“We moved a lot.” It was hard to make real friends when I wasn’t around long enough to invest. I had friends, yeah, but someone I’d call a best friend, someone I’d carve into stone? Never. April ignored me ninety-percent of the time, lost in her own little world. When we did start at a new school, I didn’t have problems making friends; I had problems keeping them.

Finn narrowed his eyes, his lips pursed together as if I told a lie.

“What?”

“You going unnoticed is like ignoring a rainbow after a heavy rainfall.”

I sat up so we faced one another. “I’m not sure I follow.”

“After every rainfall there’s a rainbow because rainbows are a promise. A promise that there will always be a light in the darkness. That’s why they are too beautiful to overlook.” His hand crept along my cheek, brushing away the fallen strands of my hair. The same strange look came over him, as if he wasn’t present at all, but somewhere else, in a strange memory. “You, Norah, are our light.”

I swallowed hard. “Where’s the darkness?”

His eyes were trained, like he was under a spell, unable to move away or stop looking at me. “Wherever you aren’t.” In our closeness I smelt it, the faint trickle of liquor deep within him, flowing through him like blood.

A faint bell rang in the distance. And then he blinked. His hand fell from my face and he cleared his throat. “Reality beckons.”

I
had to wait almost an entire week to use the phone. Talk about hell. They had some lame rule about having to sign up ahead of time and there were only so many slots. Such bull. Thank god for combat class where I could kick someone’s ass without getting in trouble.

My back slammed into the mat with a loud
thud
. A heavy groan escaped my lips. The sword clanked against the ground beside me. A rush pulsed through my veins, the old familiar feeling, like for a second I wasn’t homesick or sad. The world was normal. Well, as normal as it could be.

Finn’s chest rose up and down as he tried to catch his breath. He rolled on his side and stared at me, his eyes wider than I’d ever seen them. Sweat dripped down his forehead, coating his neck and arms.

“How the hell did you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Don’t act all innocent.” He stretched his arms up over his head. “I’ve never seen a girl use a sword so well. Not even the pirate girls.”

I copied his stretch and my entire back cracked.
So good.
“My dad was into combat.” No, Dad was obsessed with combat, thus forcing his obsession onto me. Not that I minded kicking hot boys’ butts and showing off my mad skills.

“Combat, huh?” He crossed his legs. I did the same. “What’d your mom think of that?”

“I imagine she wouldn’t approve.” I ran my hands through my damp, sweat filled hair. “But she’s not a part of my life.”

“That sucks,” he said. It had sucked, especially since my dad never talked to me about what really happened between them, why she left, where she went, if she was even still alive. And it sucked even more when he tried to have “the talk” with me about boys and sex and “menstruation.” Awkward, to say the least. Having a mom would have been nice.

“It’s probably better that way.”

“What do you mean?”I bit on my bottom lip and rose to my feet. Grabbing the sword off the floor, I headed toward the rack where the weapons were. Finn followed close. “The expectations aren’t as high for you.”