Book of Love (10 page)

My heart leapt and I quickly looked away,
grabbing my milk and taking another sip. I continued to force
myself to sit straight and appear unfazed, pretending that I hadn’t
been watching. The fact that I was sitting alone was a downside,
but I ignored how it appeared and tried my best to look as though
sitting alone was a confidence thing, and not due to my lack of
friends.

From the corner of my eye, I saw him break
away from Liz. I looked up, his oceanic eyes on me as he walked
across the yard. I licked my lips, the butterflies returning with a
vengeance as the smirk on his face grew. Liz looked hurt as she
pouted behind him, her ego deflated. I looked at his clothes,
admiring his rugged new outfit. He too wore a flannel, with the
sleeves rolled past his tattoos and his jeans another no-name pair.
For a moment, I felt mildly awkward, seeing that we were
practically matching.

Liz flicked her hair over her shoulder,
looking embarrassed, but she seemed to shrug it off rather quickly
and turn back to her friends.

Max was close now, just a few feet away.

“
Staring again, Jane?” he
said as he approached. My name lingered on his tongue, my eyes
unable to part from his mouth—his beautiful face.

“
I—uh
… No.” I frowned, looking away.
I was trying to pretend I didn’t care about Liz, though I
did.

Max sat, leaning his elbows on the table,
his arms so long, that they reached onto my half. He clasped his
fingers around the carton of milk I was still holding, causing the
skin on my hand to tingle.

“
Sure you weren’t.” He
winked, flashing his teeth as his lip remained curled. “Having a
good day?”

I shifted on the bench, my back was
beginning to ache from my unnatural posture. I wasn’t used to
sitting up this straight. I played with the spout of the milk
carton with my thumb, not willing to move my hand and admit defeat.
I considered his question and shrugged in response.

“
I saw you were alone.
Someone like you should never be alone.” His head tilted down, his
blue eyes trying to catch my gaze, urging me to look up at
him.

His words warmed me, and the little silver
flecks in his eyes that I found so intriguing entranced me. I tried
to hide a smile, but my slowly blushing cheeks said it all. His
hand lifted from the carton, touching my chin and tilting it up. I
blinked, his eyes searching mine as he held my gaze. He smiled, and
then brushed a piece of hair from my face. His touch was cold. I
figured it was from the chilly fall air. I felt so vulnerable, my
heart racing in my chest.

“
You’re beautiful, you know
that?” His hand dropped from my chin.

I glanced over his shoulder. Liz was still
watching from far across the yard, her cheeks reddened with
jealously and her ice cream death still a factor. I looked back
into Max’s eyes, feeling smug. I knew I needed to say something,
but it was hard to discern if this was real or just a dream.

I bit my lip nervously. “Thanks.”

I didn’t know how to accept a compliment,
and my singular response came across as bashful. I rarely received
such comments, except from Wes, but those didn’t count.

“
Jane.” His tone of voice
was suddenly forceful. “You are.”

I couldn’t look away this time, my body heat
suddenly soaring. I felt too close to him, uncomfortably close, but
I wanted it to happen.

The bell for the end of
lunch rang sooner than I’d expected. I cursed to myself.
They never gave us enough time.
Just another five minutes,
please.
My jaw clenched in
annoyance. I didn’t want him to leave. I no longer wanted to push
him away. He grinned, as though he knew what I was thinking—as
though he were thinking the same thing.

“
Will you meet me after
school?” he asked as he stood. “And, can I drive you home? Do you
think Wes will be okay with that?”

I hung on his words,
rolling the invite over and over in my head.
How did he know so much about me?
I
looked around, seeing that Wes was still nowhere in
sight.

“
Oh,
uh…
Sure.
He won’t mind.” I paused. “He’s just a
friend,”
I added with a
nod.

Max was still smiling. “I know.” His reply
was filled with confidence, an idea strange to me. He pressed his
hands into the pockets of his faded jeans. “Well, Jane, I’ll see
you then.”

I was still sitting on the bench, staring up
at him like a girl in love for the first time. The courtyard was
nearly empty, but I was afraid that if I stood, my knees would
buckle. I grabbed my bag off the grass as I watched him leave.
Placing it on the bench next to me, I leaned my elbow on the table
and put my head in my hand. I exhaled, smiling to myself.

Life had never felt this good.

Wes:

I watched Emily drive, my car edging along.
The gears were all wrong, but I didn’t care. All I wanted was for
the pain to stop. I struggled to breathe as every little movement
felt like a hundred swords being plunged into my soul. I looked at
the speedometer, seeing we were reaching speeds of close to eighty.
I saw why Jane and her mother never let her drive. The rubber of
the tires gripped the rough cement, echoing in my ears.

“
I’m taking you to a place
I often go,” Emily spoke—looking at me with a concern I never knew
she could posses.

This girl beside me was
suddenly so different than the girl I’d always seen her to be. In
class, she had
known
me. It was as though I’d felt her inside my head, there to
help me when no one else could. I watched her as she drove, finding
it the only thing that could ease some of the pain. Emily’s face
was not unlike her sister’s, though shrouded in a layer of makeup
that covered her flawless, milky skin.

Emily eyed me with a reproving look. She
reached into her purse that still draped across her body, handling
the wheel with one hand. I heard something jangle inside as she
kept her eyes locked on the road. She pulled out an orange
bottle—her bottle of drugs. At first I thought it was for her, but
as she tossed the bottle to me, I looked at her with surprise.

“
Take one,” she demanded. I
did as she said, opening the bottle and tilting a few pills into my
hand. There were red ones and white ones. I looked at her with
questioning eyes.

“
Just
take one,”
she snapped.

I grabbed a white one, pressing it onto my
tongue and forcing it down. I put the rest of the pills back into
the bottle, fastening the top before gripping it in my hand with
pain. I sat back against the seat and shut my eyes.

“
Wes, I—” Emily adjusted
her grip on the wheel, stopping her words.

She slowed and turned off the main road. My
car began to rattle. We were on a secluded side road, the woods
surrounding us and gravel below. This wasn’t the same road where
I’d been running off to hide, but it offered me the same comfort
and I wondered how she knew that it would. I looked up at the trees
looming overhead.

“
Wes,
this may sound crazy but—whatever is happening to you, I can sort
of
hear
it
happening.” She took one hand off the wheel and touched her
head.

I looked at her, and she looked at me. She
began to shift down, her gaze breaking from mine.

“
I don’t know why, Wes, but
I hear your pain. More now than ever before.”

I wanted to ask her how, and what she heard,
but I couldn’t bring myself to speak.

She pulled onto another adjoining gravel
road, older and even more overgrown than the last. We rattled over
the ground for another half mile before the trees parted. I saw the
makings of a very old and long forgotten house up ahead, something
I never imagined could exist in Glenwood Springs. The windows were
broken out, and vines had engulfed it. The front stoop was broken
apart, the roof damaged and collapsed in many spots, showing the
charred signs of a long ago fire.

“
I don’t know how old this
house is, or who it belonged to, but it’s why I love
it.”

She was right. Houses didn’t look like this
anymore, and I could see the draw. A few black birds shot from
inside the structure and through the roof. I watched them as though
in slow motion. Something about them stole the very breath from my
lungs, and all the pain I’d felt suddenly clotted into my chest. It
grew in intensity until I felt it was about to burst open. I
doubled over, letting out a painful yell of agony. Emily slammed on
the breaks and the car skidded through the dirt and gravel.

“
Wes!” she
screamed.

My bones rattled, the cry of the ravens
screaming overhead. I gripped my ears, trying to silence the pain,
but it was no use. I heard Emily gasp as the dust settled around
the car.

Then the pain stopped.

Erik:

“
Ahhh…
Erik.” Greg’s voice hissed as
he entered the ancient room.

I turned in alarm, gripping the edge of my
wheelchair.

“
Look at
you! So hideously
old
,” he added.

My heart stung. “I knew you’d be back,
Gregory. I warned Max that it was only a matter of time. You two
are connected by a force he will never be able to outrun.” My voice
crackled with age.

“
You
warned
Max, did you? Like that does any good anymore.” Greg rolled
his eyes. “Brother, tell me. Why do you hate me so much?” He
sneered, knowing the answer that swam in my head. He leaned against
the nearby bookshelf, tracing his fingers across the ancient
books.

I felt the hatred inside me rise the way it
had that day. “You killed our family, Gregory. What more reason do
I need?” I hissed. I tried to seem fierce, but I was still human.
There was no way I could ever win against him.

Greg’s attention fell away
from the books as his hands dropped to his sides. He approached me
and grabbed my neck, applying pressure. “I killed them because they
were
worthless.
How could you not see that they were horrible parents?” He
let go of my neck and turned toward the center of the room, his
hands in the air. “They spent their days hosting lavish parties,
entertaining every patron in town as though they were
saints.
And Mother,
running off to sleep with that—that
alchemist!”
He turned back toward
me, crossing the space between us and again gripping my neck with
his cold hand. “They didn’t care about
us.”
His eyes glowed with
hatred.

“
They did, Greg. They loved
us.” My words were forced.

“
But not
me, dear Erik. They did not love
me.”
Greg tilted his head, grasping
my neck harder.

“
They…
d—
did
…
love… you.”
I was wincing through labored breaths.

Greg exhaled, examining
the nails on his other hand with leisure. “You know, I didn’t mean
for you to be there that day, but you were anyway. Too bad you
didn’t die along with the rest.” He paused, clicking his tongue. “I
see now that I really wished you would
all
die.”

“
But...
I didn’t.
I’m alive… thanks to… M—
Max,”
I added.

Greg clenched his teeth
and growled at me. “Max, the saint!” He laughed. “I died killing
our family, Max died trying to save it. Really, I don’t see the
difference. We both became angels in the end.” He let go of my neck
as I fell back into my chair, gasping for air. “I did you a favor
by killing them. But what favors did you do me?
None!
After I was gone, you did me
the ultimate injustice. You allowed that
slime
of an alchemist to take you
in!”

Gregory’s massive black
wings stretched across the room, bursting from thin air like a
cloud of smoke. “Our parents were naïve to think that I loved them,
but now, I will drag them all to Hell. They will suffer for the way
they rubbed elbows with the rich, with the
magickal.”
Drops of blood thudded as
they hit the wood floor, oozing from his wings.

“
You’re
magickal,”
I contended bravely.

Greg narrowed his gaze—a last warning. It
didn’t matter.

I snorted. “You work with evil beings,
Gregory. You have been corrupted by the demons of their world. What
do you know of happiness besides that which lies under the deceit
you’ve so fondly coveted?”

I could almost feel the
jealousy in Greg grow. “Just because Max denies the power he feels,
and the purity of our magickal race, that does not make him
so
holy.”
He
paused to pace the room. “He is an angel, but also a demon, Erik,
built for carrying dead souls to the other side.” He shook his head
with disgust. “Such a waste of power! And above all, I can’t
believe he thinks he can re-acclimate himself and act
human
again!” Laughter
erupted from Greg’s throat. “Love is for the
weak.”