Misty Falls (15 page)

‘So will you try with Misty now?’ asked Summer, turning to smile encouragingly at me.

Her back was to him but I saw the run of emotions passing over his face. One of them definitely included distaste before he masked it with his company smile. ‘I’d be happy to.’

Lie.

Tears rushed to my eyes. ‘I think we should leave it for now.’ For ever, I was thinking. ‘I’ve got a job to do and I’m a little outside his range in any case. Summer, you were always the better candidate.’ I quickly took my tray over to a group of new arrivals, offloading the last of the soft drinks.

Misty, what happened?
Summer asked softly as she excused my abrupt departure to Alex.

He doesn’t want to try. You know he can’t pretend around me.
I nodded to a man who asked me to fetch him a beer, attempting to hide the fact I was having a telepathic conversation with someone else at the same time. ‘Of course, sir.’

I dumped my empty tray on the bar and grabbed Annalise. ‘Take a beer to that man with the red shirt, will you? I need a break.’ I couldn’t stay in the room. Summer or—worse—Angel would hunt me down. I’d have to tell them the truth—that I was really hurt—and then I’d probably cry and throw something at Alex. I had learned the hard way to avoid potential Misty moments and here was a big one brewing.

I retreated to the Ladies’ and immediately caused an argument as one girl, who was reapplying lipgloss in the mirror, candidly confessed to her best friend that she had stolen ten pounds from her purse earlier that evening. I had to get out but I couldn’t run far enough to escape myself. Yanking my coat off the peg in the cloakroom, I walked swiftly outside and took huddled refuge on a bench in the yard of the Round Church, a medieval building next door to the Union. It was a huge relief to get away from other savants. The green patch smelt of damp earth, yew leaves, and discarded fast food wrappers. Knees up, I rested my head, imagining myself a tombstone—cold and hard enough not to feel anything. It didn’t work. What was so wrong with me that Alex didn’t even want to try? I wasn’t perfect like Summer, or confident and talented like Angel, but I wasn’t totally awful, was I?

Someone sat down beside me. I peeked, half expecting to see one of the local winos with his cider bottle swinging like a club. It was Alex. I thought that, of the two, I’d prefer the drunk.

‘Why did you run?’ he asked.

I wiped my eyes hurriedly on my knees and looked up. His face was thrown into shadow by the headlights passing on the road just the other side of the churchyard wall. A few tiny flakes of snow began to fall, landing on the shoulders of his jacket and not melting. ‘Do you know what my gift is?’

‘Tarryn said you make people tell the truth.’

‘That’s not the whole story. I know when someone lies.’

‘You do?’ He rubbed his hands together and blew on them. His breath came in white puffs. I couldn’t tell if he really was more interested in the fact that he was freezing, or that he wanted to disguise the fact that he was nervous.

‘And I can’t lie even if I want to. So I’ll tell you that I saw what you felt about testing the link with me.’

He folded his arms, chin disappearing into the collar of his jacket.

‘I get that I’m not the girl of your dreams, but what’s so wrong about me that you don’t even want to ask the question?’ There: I’d said it.

‘Wrong with
you
?’ He turned so that one knee was half on the bench and he was facing me. ‘You think this is about you? No, Misty. I’m sorry if you thought that.’

‘Don’t tell me:
it’s not you, it’s me
.’

He smiled wryly. ‘It does sound a cliché but yes, it’s my problem.’

He was telling the truth as he knew it. I wasn’t sure that it helped. ‘I think I know the rest: you’re swimming along, being your usual charming self, and come near me, you sink. I’m the equivalent of cramp.’

He reached out and brushed a fingertip over the back of my hand, leaving a trail of sparks. ‘I wish you weren’t.’ Truth.

‘So it would be a disaster if we were soulfinders?’

‘Ja … nee … maybe.’ The guy looked away, confused enough to lapse into his native Afrikaans.

I had to laugh. ‘Well, that answer covers all possibilities.’

His gaze came back to my face. ‘I’m not used to being lost for words—and you make me stumble repeatedly. But it wouldn’t change the fundamental truth, would it?’

‘No, it wouldn’t. Either we are, or we aren’t.’

He took a firmer grip on my hand. ‘So do you want to find out?’

Did I? ‘My aunt says no soulfinders until you’re eighteen. I kinda see the sense in that.’

‘So do you want to find out?’ His voice went a little deeper.

It was torture—but not knowing was worse. ‘Yes.’

‘Close your eyes then.’

I let my lids drift down—then quickly opened them again just in case he was having me on. He had shut his too. I could trust him. I closed mine and waited. There was someone at the door to my mind.

Hello, Misty.

Alex.

I was flying. Sprinkled with fairy dust, I was no longer held down by gravity. If I opened my eyes, surely I’d be floating above the bench, soaring over the ancient round nave of the church and the brightly lit stained-glass windows. Traffic noise ebbed. There was only the rush of the wind and the needle-sharp constellations in the night sky ducking in and out of patchy clouds. But I wasn’t alone. My hand was held tightly by my companion on this flight. Second star on the right and straight on till morning. The grip pulled me closer and became a hug: two strong arms around me, eliminating thoughts of being cold, of falling.

I opened my eyes. I was still on the bench, but now had my head against Alex’s chest as we absorbed the truth.

My soulfinder.
His voice was full of wonder.
I can’t believe it.

Yes.
Linked by telepathy I was glimpsing what he wanted to show me of his private thoughts, part of the amazing new intimacy. His mind whirled like mine. He had taken the test with no expectation that this would be the outcome; he had done it to be kind to me—to heal my hurt. Yet the reason he had not anticipated this moment was nothing to do with me not being good enough.

It was because I have
no one close to me
,
no one who is mine
. Superman Alex was an act to protect himself. Rejected by his family, he had assumed from very young that would be the pattern of all his relationships.
I don’t hope for this kind of luck.
His fingers skated over my leg which was half on his lap as I had somehow turned into his embrace while my eyes were closed. He found the ladder in my tights and tickled the gap that had grown huge during the evening. So much for nobody noticing. I could feel him smiling even if I hadn’t yet worked up the courage to look at his face. I guess that hole gave him fair warning of the kind of imperfect person I was.

It was too much to take in.

Then don’t.
He had caught the beginning of my panic attack.

What are we going to do?
I asked. I meant in the future, bringing our two very different lives together, overcoming my negative effect on his gift, but he chose to misunderstand me.

‘I think the best plan,’ he had reverted to speaking aloud, ‘is to kiss you. That way you won’t have time to panic.’

That made me look up. His eyes were bright with exhilaration at our discovery. He was also teasing me.

I had to check. ‘You
want
to kiss me?’

He rolled his eyes, showing a humorous side I hadn’t yet glimpsed, appealing to the heavens to help him with his idiotic soulfinder. ‘Give me strength. Misty, don’t you know when a guy has been dying to kiss you for months?’

Clearly not. ‘You mean you wanted to kiss me in Cape Town?’

‘Yes, in Cape Town, and with those ridiculous penguins, and on the top of Table Mountain. Don’t you know how kissable you are?’

I quickly licked my lips, worrying that they might be too dry and cold. ‘But I thought you wanted to dump a bucket of ice over my head when I beat you at table tennis.’

His mouth quirked charmingly. ‘That too. I never claimed I was consistent. You infuriate and attract me in equal parts.’ He leaned forward and kissed the end of my nose. ‘By the way, I demand a rematch.’

‘Only if you’re ready for me to thrash you again.’

‘I’m ready for you this time; I won’t be so easy to beat.’

I was still thinking through the ‘kissable’ comment. He was telling the truth but it didn’t chime with my impressions of our encounters in South Africa. ‘But at the beach, you walked away from me.’

He sighed, knowing that the kiss had been put back a while so we could sort this out. ‘I walked away from the family I didn’t have. You told me I didn’t have it in me understand yours.’

I replayed the conversation, seeing how he might have thought that if he was particularly sensitive. ‘I didn’t mean it as an insult! I meant we are a bunch of loonies, beyond anyone normal’s comprehension. I was putting you in normal camp, not mocking you.’

His palm had settled on my hip, warmth seeping through the layers of coat and skirt. ‘I’ve always wanted to be part of that kind of crazy gang, more than anything. All the savants I’ve met have that; I felt a freak of nature being alone.’

I may be incompatible software as far as his gift went, but I could at least give him his heart’s desire because I came from the box fully charged with family: Mum, Dad, sisters and brothers, grandparents, uncles and aunts galore. ‘Welcome to mine then. They will be embarrassingly delighted to have you.’

Alex moved his hands to frame my face, thumbs brushing stray curls off my cheeks. Kiss back on the agenda.

‘My stupid hair; it’s always in the way.’ I hurried to bundle it back but he stopped me.

‘Leave it. I love your wayward hair. Gorgeous colour—streaks of sunshine. It’s like you.’ He twisted a curl round a finger, fascinated by how it clung.

‘I’m not sure I believe you because you told your friends … ’

‘I know what I told my friends. I could hardly admit to them that I wanted to bury my hands in your hair.’ His actions matched his words.

‘So, what, you were like the little boy who flings frogspawn at a girl to show he likes her?’

He laughed at the picture. ‘Not entirely. See, I didn’t know my girl was listening. I was playing down my attraction to you—and you did look wilder than normal that evening. Super cute. It was very funny.’

‘And my presence forced you into speaking a truth but you slanted it for your audience.’

He nodded. ‘You blow me off course; you can’t help it. I meant to be cool and it came out cruel.’

Was I going to let him off? ‘But what about all that “she’s the last girl I’d date” stuff?’

‘Ah.’ I’d caught him out. ‘You can’t expect me to say in front of my big-mouth friends that you’re
lekker
.’

‘
Lekker?
’

‘Beautiful.’

From the slant of his smile I guessed that wasn’t quite the right translation but I decided to look it up later.

‘They’ve been trying to get me to admit that I had a thing for you with me acting so different around you. But you saw how they were when you made me confess that I’d had a crush on Miss Coetzee; they would’ve been really annoying for weeks if I’d even hinted I liked you.’

A little alarm bell rang that he had felt forced. ‘That’s the only reason?’

‘You’re not letting me duck this one?’

‘What you said about me embarrassing you haunted me for months.’

He took my right hand to his mouth and kissed the fingers. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t get away with half-truths around you, can I? It’s going to take some getting used to. I guess the real reason was because you seemed too young and sweet for me and I became a fool around you. As I’m waiting for my soulfinder, I only date girls who don’t turn me into an idiot.’

‘Only
dated
girls. Past tense.’

‘Yes, past tense. ’ He brushed a snowflake from my cheek. ‘And I’m well past tense waiting to kiss you. Am I done explaining myself?’

I nodded. Oh lord, it was more difficult now he had announced his intention. I’d never kissed a boy, not properly. Until now it had always been short-lived experiments in dark corners of parties, which I hadn’t really liked. Something had always gone a bit wrong, usually me laughing nervously and annoying my partner. No boy had said he had had his socks blown off kissing me so I considered myself a failure at it.

‘What do I do?’ I asked.

‘I was hoping you’d just enjoy it.’ He smiled self-deprecatingly. ‘It’s not a test.’ He closed the gap and put his lips to mine. This was no clumsy mashing of mouths and teeth; no desire to laugh; it was a sweet exploration of soft textures and warmth. He shifted our positions so that I was leaning back, his face above mine. One firm hand supported me between the shoulder blades while the other caressed my hair, neck, even my ear. I hadn’t realized how sensitive these places could be; it was as though he was switching them all on to hyperawareness with every pass of his fingers. It was a hello of a kiss, a this-is-what-we-can-be-together promise. His embrace felt so strong, so right, as he guided me through the moves without hesitation or awkwardness. I wanted it to go on for ever; it made so much more sense than talking; but finally he broke away. We held each other’s gaze as gently as we had kissed.