Book of Love (14 page)

I saw the door open more
and a figure came out behind Jane. I felt my heart break as I
recognized his face.
What was he doing
here?
I hadn’t heard his heart as I had
with Jane and Emily, and I wondered what that meant. I tilted my
head, scanning his face. His expression seemed smug but also
polite, which only angered me more. I narrowed my eyes, looking
back at Emily and seeing she was gawking at the same thing I had. I
wanted to know what she heard. Jane stood on the porch with her
arms crossed against her chest.

Emily blinked a few times,
in shock. I felt something else from her, a sour feeling, something
like disappointment. I grumbled and turned away from all of them,
walking across my own lawn and storming into the house. I couldn’t
handle all the changes, the
sounds
. I slammed the door behind
me, rushing upstairs where I went to my room and slammed that door
as well. I threw myself on my bed, humming in an attempt to make
the beating stop. A lump rose in my throat.

I hated him.
I hated him.

Jane:

I watched Wes storming away, knowing that
what he’d seen angered him. I exhaled, bowing my head. I’d made a
mess of my life, and I knew nothing would ever be the same.

“
You’re a
real
bitch
, you know that, Jane?” Emily screamed from the lawn,
storming toward me. She brushed past me, pausing and glaring over
her shoulder before entering the house.

I turned, my eyes meeting Max’s. “I’m
sorry.” I wanted to apologize for the fact that he had to see any
of this.

Max smiled bleakly in return. “Maybe I
should go.”

Perhaps he had picked up on the subtle
jealousy I’d felt when I saw Emily and Wes so obviously engaged in
some sort of intimate exchange. I knew that it was my idea to get
them together, but I never expected to feel so confused about it.
In truth, I was just hoping that it would make my guilt disappear,
but that was hardly the result.

I nodded, making a fool of
myself.
Who was I kidding?
Max was never going to like me after this. No one
would. Why had I gotten things so tangled up with Wes? Why was
everything falling apart? I was looking at my feet when I felt two
strong hands grip either arm. A tingling sensation rushed through
me.

“
Don’t worry,
Jane.”

Shocked, I looked up at Max. His eyes
searched mine. He smiled—a smile so reassuring, so deep, that all
my negative thoughts ceased. I felt overwhelmed by him, his beauty
unlike anything I’d seen before. He let go of me, leaving my skin
tingling.

“
I’ll see you
tomorrow.”

Max turned then, bounding down the steps and
to his car. I watched as a shiver ran down my spine, warming inside
my stomach. I was coveting his body in a way I’d never coveted
anyone’s body before.

I thought about the night with Wes and the
way it had felt. It was awkward, as though the proper connection
wasn’t there. I was crazy about Wes in a different way. It was
unfair to lie to myself and try to feel something romantic when I
didn’t. When I looked at Max, however, I felt tingles all over. I
was drawn to him, as though I could never be close enough. I needed
to learn that this feeling toward Max was real, and the one for Wes
was based on nothing but history—a mere connection of time, not
love.

Max got in the car, looking at me once more
before backing out of the drive. He had a half smile on his lips,
one dimple cutting into his left cheek where that simple little
freckle lived.

I wouldn’t ruin this.

Emily:

I stormed to my room,
slamming the door.
Calm down,
I told myself.
You can’t
suddenly become so territorial!

Wes and Jane had a complicated history, and
I knew this from every thought in their heads. In the yard, it was
overwhelming, but now that I’d had the chance to consider it, I
knew that his confused thoughts were a necessary means to an end.
Wes had some major transitioning to do, and I needed to understand
that. This was only his first day dealing with this gift of his, or
whatever it was. I’d been dealing with mine for as long as I could
remember.

Hearing what everyone
thought was a burden, and so this feeling of disorder wasn’t
foreign to me. Things happened a lot faster in my world because I
always
knew
everything. I lived in a place where secrets simply did not
exist, unless
I
was keeping them. In fact, I envied secrets, and especially
surprises. They keep us blissfully ignorant to the truths that hurt
us. Is it better to know? Or is it better to wonder?

I thought about the way I
used to understand what the dog was thinking. It certainly made
caring for him a piece of cake, and being able to communicate
across a boundary otherwise found impossible, was huge. It wasn’t
like the dog’s thoughts were in English, but rather a series of
urges and ambient noise. That was when I knew that the things I
heard weren’t because I was crazy, but because they were
real.

I went to the window, looking through the
blinds. Wes’s room was diagonal to mine, but I would give anything
to have it directly across, as Jane’s was. Wes’s blinds were shut.
I released a spout of air, reaching for the journal under my
pillow. I sighed dejectedly, touching the pages.

Shutting my eyes, I lifted my hand to my
face, tracing my lips and feeling where Wes had kissed me. It was a
passionate kiss, a kiss like I’d never experienced before. Most
boys kissed me in a way that felt as though I could be anyone, that
I was just another girl looking to get free drugs—a nobody.

It was obvious why I’d never had a real
boyfriend. I was afraid of how it would feel to know what they were
thinking. I was afraid that my jealousy would get the best of me,
as it was threatening to do now. I began to wonder if I’d ever be
able to love someone, especially when knowing their every critical
thought made loving or feeling loved, hard.

I thought about Max then, wondering what it
was I saw behind his eyes that felt so familiar to me. His thoughts
were strange, the whispers unlike anyone else’s. They were
organized and guarded, as though he knew someone might be out there
listening. It was unsettling. No one had ever had thoughts that
were so perfectly structured.

Then, there were the other thoughts I heard
in his head. It was as though they weren’t his at all. Max kept
them separated from his own, in their own special corner. Their
noticeable lack of structure told me that he had no control over
them, but still, they were there.

But why?

I did not understand what it was about the
two new boys, but there was something. It was clear that Max’s
whispers were different that Greg’s, because they did not cripple
me with their mere sound. Greg’s were screaming, whereas Max’s just
whispered, as though at peace.

What did it mean?

I was afraid for my sister. I did not want
her to be near Max. No matter if he was good or bad, the bottom
line was that his general existence creeped me out. Anything that
made my skin crawl wasn’t a good sign. No matter how calm those
whispers may be, they still weren’t right.

I heard a noise outside and went to the
window to look. The blinds to Wes’s room were open, and I saw his
face. He was looking toward my room, his breath fogging the glass.
I grabbed the cord to my blinds, tugging gently as I lifted
them.

We locked eyes. He smiled. I gave him a
little wave, and he waved back. I looked back to my room, trying to
find a piece of paper. I rummaged through my desk, finding a torn
portion from a spiral notebook and a red marker. I wrote ‘sorry’ in
large messy print on the page.

When I went back to the window, Wes was
still there, but he’d already had a piece of paper held there.

It read, ‘Come over.’

Max:

I was driving down the road away from Jane’s
house when a dark figure was suddenly in the seat beside me.

“
You’re
so
pathetic
, Max.” Greg clicked his tongue.

“
So are you.” I didn’t even
bother to look at him.

Greg laughed. “I guess that’s what makes us
brothers, then.” He began to play with the car, pushing buttons and
adjusting the heat. “Why even drive, Max? To fit in? It’s much
easier to simply appear, and disappear.” He snapped his fingers for
effect.

I didn’t entertain him with an answer.

“
Emily sure is a nice girl.
Don’t you think?” He changed the subject, not that I liked the new
one any better than the last. “I don’t think she likes you much,
though. That’s too bad.” He was tugging on the seatbelt, his voice
smug.

I glared at him. “Stay away from Emily,
Greg.”

He gave me a dramatic pouty face that made
my anger boil.

“
Oh, why?
She’s so
cute.
I don’t think I can resist.” He licked his lips in an
inappropriate manner. “Her soul would align
perfectly
with mine.”

I slammed on the breaks as Greg’s body flew
through the windshield and onto the hood of my car. His blood
streaked the hood as he rolled onto the road. He lay there for a
moment before moving, his bones cracking back into place. He
groaned and stood with a humored expression.

“
Ouch,
Max.” He tilted his
head as his neck cracked back into place. His cuts quickly stitched
back together, the blood absorbing into his skin. Greg laughed,
brushing off his clothes.

The door of a house nearby
opened and a woman came running toward us,
screaming.
I narrowed my eyes at her
and she stopped. I entered her mind, telling her lies, a thing I
hated to do, but in this instance, it was necessary. She turned and
walked back into the house as though nothing had happened. Greg
laughed at me, walking back toward the passenger door and climbing
inside. I continued forward, the windshield ruined as the air blew
against our faces.

“
Now look what you did.”
Greg said it as though I’d simply broken a water glass. “At least I
know you still have a talent for mind control, though you barely
use it.”

“
Stay away from Emily,
Greg.”

He shook his head. “Afraid
I can’t do that, Brother. Why—I think I’m in
love
with her.” He was being
sarcastic, playing on my emotions for Jane.

“
Why are
you so
Hell
-bent on ruining me? No pun intended.” I turned onto Grand
Avenue. People were staring at the blood stained car, but I didn’t
care. Out here it wasn’t uncommon to hit a deer.

“
Because,
Brother,”
he sounded annoyed. “I enjoy being powerful,
don’t you? And with you on my side, I can bring Hell on Earth,
literally.” He snorted. “Oh, but wait. You just want to fall
in
love
. That’s
right. With a human, no less.” He fell back against the seat,
chuckling. The windshield was suddenly returned to its original
glory, the blood gone. Greg was showing off.

I rolled my eyes. “I will
never let you do that, and you know it’s true. There have been
plenty before you that have tried the same thing. Far more powerful
than you, might I add? They failed. You’ll fail.
Everyone always fails.”

Greg snorted again. “So?
They had it all wrong! They tried to do it alone, but see, you and
I have a special connection, and together, our power is far
stronger than any of those demons that failed before.” He laughed.
“Just think—long ago, when Pandora left Heaven to cavort with the
beautiful and weak men of Earth, do you think she ever expected
that she was quite literally opening Pandora’s Box? She released
these evils,
our
evil.”

I glared at him.

“
It’s her fault that I want
to kill every human here. It was her infidelities against the
Heavens. You may as well join now, before you’re swept away in the
aftermath.”

“
I will never turn to the
demonic side like you have. Don’t you get it?” I was tired of his
games.

Greg was still smiling, as though he hadn’t
heard a thing I’d said.

“
I’ll
find a way, Max. Someday you will see that this world does nothing
but cause pain. One day, when Jane turns against you, then you will
come crawling back to me, because you will see that you have
nothing. You will see that humans are weak, that we are not meant
to mix with them. And besides, do you really think she’s going to
want to be with you once she figures out what you are? What do you
think she’s going to say? ‘Oh, Max, I don’t mind that
you’re
dead.
It’s sexy.’ That, my dear brother, will
never
happen.” Greg was mimicking a
female voice rather poorly. “She is sexy, though. Isn’t she?” He
growled like a cat. “I don’t blame you one bit!”

I clenched my jaw, disliking the way he was
mocking me and Jane.

“
You have it all wrong,
Greg. You’re just afraid to admit that you wish you had someone to
love, but you refuse to allow it into your heart. You’re afraid
because you know your enemies outweigh your allies. People will be
lined up down the block, just waiting to stab your dead heart
out—if your heart still exists.”