18 Truths (20 page)

My throat tightened as I stepped into view. “Um, hey, bro. Fancy meeting you here.”

Nate flashed me a smile that wavered at the edges. “Hey, Olga.”

I ignored his lackluster tone, pulled an extra chair to the table, and lifted a colorful mug to the waitress. “Is it okay if I join you guys, Grace?”

“Uh, okay.”

The lie was clearly written on her face, and for a moment, I felt sorrier for her than I did for myself. Part of me just wanted to blurt out the truth. She was dead, and if she just got better, she could see her mom again, and I could have my boyfriend back.

Watching the server pour the black goodness into my cup, I tried to gather my thoughts for what I should really say. “Look, I’ve been worried about you. I’m glad you’ve had Nate to hang out with and everything, but one of the reasons I wanted to have lunch with you today is I also really wanted to apologize for what I said the day we met and at the charity function. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Grace turned and looked toward the mountains. In that moment, Nate gave me a stare that seemed to say
why are you here ruining all my plans?
I pushed my hands in the pockets of my shorts and stared back at him defiantly. But then the wind mussed his hair and he lifted a muscular arm to straighten the strands with his long, elegant fingers, reminding me how much I just wanted his reassuring arms around me instead. I sipped my coffee, letting Nate win this staring contest.

“It’s fine.” Grace’s voice snapped me out of me lustful trance. She raised her eyebrows at me. “Hey, are
you
okay?”

Right now, I no doubt looked like I needed a white padded wall and a strait-jacket. “Not really. Something important came up, and Nate needs to come home.”

Grace tossed her napkin onto the table and stood. “No problem. I have some things to do anyway. You guys want to hang out tonight though? There’s a concert in downtown Asheville I was thinking of going to.”

I knew Nate would love that, but I shook my head. “Not today.”

Nate glanced from me to Grace and back again before standing. “Right. Um, let me walk you to your car, Grace.”

My heart pounded, just thinking about him escorting another girl to her car like the perfect gentleman. “We both will!” I knew I said the words with a little too much fake enthusiasm.

The three of us descended the steps onto the cobblestone path lined with specialty shops meant to attract tourists
. Like taking candy from a baby, if only it were so easy to lure Nate to me.
We were quiet enough to hear a pin drop. Perhaps they were lost in their own thoughts. I simply didn’t know what to say.

Grace pressed a button on her keychain and headlights on a white Kia Optima flashed.

I just couldn’t help myself from muttering a quip remark. “Hey, by the way, nice job on being Student of the Month at Gulf Middle School. I forgot to congratulate you that day we skipped school together.”

I didn’t know if I hurt her or Nate with the reminder of our faux friendship, but I did know I’d already succeeded in torturing myself.

Grace laughed. “Thanks. My mom put the bumper sticker on when I was in sixth grade. This was her car, until she died. I guess having a car waiting for me when I turned sixteen was kind of morbidly convenient.”

I froze in place at her comment, and Nate move forward to open the door for her. Drawing in a sharp breath, I watched Grace get in, then Nate leaning forward and placing his hands on the roof of the car, whispering something in her ear before shutting the door.

I shuddered when he moved past me, still mute, and debated telling him anything at all. Then I dismissed my jealous thoughts when he looked back over his shoulder with those eyes I could get lost in.

I
so
despised the idea of posing as his sister. Our cover meant I couldn’t run to him now and hold him like I wanted to.

I also didn’t like dealing with demons, but doing things I didn’t like seemed to come with the territory these days.

“Speak the truth,
even if your voice shakes.”
—Bumper Sticker

nce Grace drove out of sight, honking at Nate as she left the parking lot, we both blinked. When we opened our eyes, we’d arrived at headquarters territory. One second—that’s all it took to change everything. In retrospect, I longed for the necessity of walking or driving from Point A to Point B. It gave you a chance to clear your head before you said something stupid.

Unsurprisingly, Nate’s mysterious mood toward me hadn’t improved. “What’s wrong with you? I already canceled the plans I had with her last night. Are you trying to destroy all the progress I’ve made? What if Grace needs me? I can’t afford to botch this assignment for us.”

“Seriously? Is that really all she is to you? An assignment?”

He frowned at me. “What? You still think this is some sort of hook-up thing? Because if that’s what you’re implying after everything we’ve been through—”

I threw up my hands. “I don’t know. Maybe I am! I’m not sure of anything anymore. Honestly, sure isn’t even a feeling looming on the horizon. I just want you to be real with me, and tell me what’s going on, because I can tell there’s something you’re keeping from me. Like where you were last night?” I sucked in a deep breath, then forced the words out. “And I’m also ready to tell you what’s going on with me. So, if you can stop worrying about your new girlfriend for like ten minutes, I’d like to have a serious conversation with you.”

He shook his head. “She’s not—”

I turned my back on him. “Whatever. I’m done talking about Grace. Weren’t you listening to me? Because I don’t admit you’re right very often, but you were last night when you said there was something on my mind I wasn’t telling you.”

Nate came up behind me and spun me around.

“Look, I’m sorry, okay? Tell me what’s wrong.” He tilted my chin up, forcing me to meet his gaze.

“I went to see Dr. Judy after school today.”

“Without me?”

“Yeah, and you really don’t have the right to complain right now.”

“Sorry. It’s just the ‘you fail, I fail’ predicament we’re in,” he said, adding air quotes. “You have to give me a heads up about these things.”

Predicament?
I shook my head. Maybe he didn’t mean to use that specific word and all its negative connotations. But I loved how he conveniently acted like Grace was ‘our’ assignment whenever it suited him.

“All I’m saying is you’re being a little hypocritical right now because Dr. Judy said you’d been updating her on Grace’s status—”

“Yeah, but just over phone calls and text messages, not going to—”

“Whatever! It’d still be nice if you kept me informed on things.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Anyway, you want the gory details or not? Because, well, I hypnotized Dr. Judy today and discovered a lot of things.”

“You did what?”

I explained the hour session with her, the details flying out of my mouth without any censorship. He watched me the whole time, never saying a word or even giving a slight nod of his head.

In the end, I met his gaze, praying mine appeared genuine. “I’m getting Conner back, and I’d like you to be a part of my mission.”

He tilted his head for a moment, and then leaned closer, like he was trying to hear me better. “I’m not following you. Are you talking about those passwords you discovered from Dr. Judy? You think you can use them to locate Conner?”

“Yes! Don’t you see? I can find him now.”

“Yeah, and I can find the North Pole and Santa Claus, too.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t be condescending.”

He froze, standing as still as a statue. “So, it’s been exactly what I’ve thought all along.”

Blinking, I gathered the courage I needed to deliver my speech. I’d rehearsed what I had to say in my head a thousand times while waiting around for Nate these past three weeks. “It’s just who I am. In this job, we’re going to see people at their worst. People don’t think of the meaning of life and why they’re here and the point of everything. It’s already so hard to make Grace see the light, and she was only eighteen when she died. Imagine how much more bitter people are in their thirties, forties, fifties, and so on. The number one rule Dr. Judy, Ash, and Riel taught us was don’t let the darkness take us over.”

I bit my lip and shifted my eyes to the woods, making sure nobody eavesdropped on our conversation before finishing. “And if I become the person who doesn’t go after Conner, then I’m the kind of person who’s stuck in the dark. I’m the kind of person who can’t look herself in the mirror. I’m the kind of person who lets bitterness take over, and I’m the kind of person who won’t be of any use to anyone. Because please understand this one thing: the only way I can truly move forward with you is to find Conner first.”

Silence hung in the air, and for a moment, his crumpled face held the puzzled expression of trying to decipher what I’d just unloaded on him. This quickly changed to a look of contempt.

“How would you even know how to find him? You only have some passwords and no idea of how to use them.”

“A demon told me.” I shrugged to make my bombshell seem like less of a big deal.

He met my gaze, sucking in a violent gasp. “What? A demon! Geez, Olga, as long as you have a reliable source!”

“That’s not fair… he had proof.”

I forced myself to take a deep breath. I needed to choose my words carefully. Nate needed to understand how much I loved him, but he also needed to understand how much I needed to go after Conner.

“Nate, I understand how this whole thing seems insane and how making a deal with a demon could totally blow up in our faces. But I don’t need another lecture right now. I need your help. I’ve never been more nervous or terrified in my whole life. My eighteen things didn’t prepare me for this. Finding Conner is… well, if I’m being honest with myself and with you, he
is
the reason I took the spirit guide job instead of going to Heaven. And I’ve been so scared to admit that to you because I don’t want to lose you, but more than that, I’m scared of not finding out what happened to him.”

Nate stiffened like I’d just pointed the barrel of a gun between his eyebrows. “How could you even do this to me? Do you want to destroy everything we worked for?”

A tear slipped down my cheek. “None of this changes the way I feel about you. I love you. I want you to be my boyfriend. Nothing will change that. I just want my best friend back, too.”

I felt sufficiently exposed, not to mention idiotic. My words sounded stupid even to me, but I couldn’t help feeling this way. I reached for his hand, but he pulled his arm back. He didn’t look convinced by my words of reassurance at all.

“I don’t think you are in the best frame of mind right now. This plan has disaster written all over it.” His voice was cold. “You can’t blindly go into a realm you’re not supposed to be in. You don’t have the perspective you need yet. Let’s give this new information the demon gave you a few days to settle. I think you’ll see how crazy you sound after I help you decipher everything.” He grabbed my arms, giving them a firm squeeze. “And then
we
need to take this to Dr. Judy. A demon trying to make bargains with us is new territory. She’ll know how to handle things. You’ll have to come clean with her about what you learned in hypnosis, but I don’t entirely trust Riel and Ash yet, so we can’t tell them about you almost going rogue. Dr. Judy is our best bet for an ally.”