Rising Tide: Dark Innocence (The Maura DeLuca Trilogy Book 1) (7 page)

“Maybe it’s about time you got to
bed, Maura?  I’d say you’ve had a pretty full day.”  I knew then,
that for the moment, Mom wasn’t going to say anything about what had happened
tonight. 

“Sure.”  I wasn’t going to
push my luck.  Well…not too much, “Can I say goodbye to them?”

She looked at me questioningly, but
answered, “Sure, go ahead.”

“Mom…Alone?”  When she looked
irritated, I added, “Please just for a minute?”  I leaned closer to her. 
“I really need to thank him for…what he did.”

She didn’t look happy about it, but
left us to go into the kitchen.  The three of us got up and walked to the
door. 

I turned to Shane first. 
“Thanks, Shane.  It was really great of you to interrupt your camping trip
and drive me home like that.  Thank you, so much.”  My face was
already burning, because I knew what I’d have to say next.

“Hey, it’s no big deal,” Shane
grinned his irresistible grin, “besides it was worth it to see your bunny
jammies!”  He laughed loudly as he walked out the door.  “See ya in
the car, Ron.”

“Geez…that guy,” Ron shook his
head.

“Shane’s great.  Ya gotta love
him.” I said, stalling.  My eyes focused on the blue stripes in my fuzzy
socks.  “Ron…”

“Don’t worry about it.  You
don’t have to say anything.”  That made me look up to face him.  His
smile was soft and full of warmth.

“Yes I do!” I protested vehemently,
“if it weren’t for you…” I thought about that for a minute.  “I would have
drowned.” 

Even though I’d known that, it felt
strange to say it out loud.  It made me go icy inside and out all over
again.

He looked angry again for a minute,
but fought to control his expression, make it soft again.  “I couldn’t
stand it if anything had happened to you, Maura.  And I wasn’t spying on
you, I swear!  It’s just when you told me you were going swimming with
those sharks I got this really bad feeling.  I couldn’t shake it, you
know?  I just felt like I really needed to be there to look out for you,
to protect you.”

“Really?  You wanted to
protect me?”

“Of course, Maura, you don’t know…”
he broke off there and I could tell he changed what he was originally going to
say.  “You don’t know how glad I am that you’re okay.”

“Only because of you,” I timidly
put my hand on his arm and leaned in to kiss his cheek.  I pulled back
then and, more boldly, looked into his eyes, “Thank you, so much.”  My
voice was heavy with emotion.  I knew I truly owed this boy my life.

“You’re very welcome.”  His
eyes held mine for a minute.  He made me feel like he could somehow see
inside of me.  Like he knew me in a way I didn’t even know existed yet.

Caelyn came back into the room
then, breaking the way I was memorizing the exact hue of his irises. 

“I want to thank you again,
too.”  She shocked me by coming right over to him and, without any
warning, hugged him tightly.  It was Ron’s turn to blush then.  He
always seemed so in control it almost made me giggle…if there hadn’t been big
tears glistening in Caelyn’s eyes.  She was really taking this hard. 
I hated to see her even more upset than she usually was, and felt a cold shock
of remorse for lying to her and going to do something I knew was stupid. with
people I’d known deep down didn’t really like me. 

I wrapped my hands around her
wrist, “I’m sorry I scared you, Mom.  I really am.”  My voice
wouldn’t rise above a whisper.

She reached around me to pull me
into her side.  “I’m just glad you’re okay, Maura.”  She wiped at her
eyes with the backs of her hands.  She turned back to Ron again, “I hope
we see you around here again before we go.”

That took me by surprise.  I
couldn’t imagine Caelyn wanted me to get any closer to any boy, whether he’d
saved my life or not.  She must have felt completely indebted to the
suddenly shy hero standing before us.

“I’d like that a lot,” he
admitted.  “Bye, Maura.  I guess I’ll see you Monday.”

I noticed Caelyn stiffen when he
said that, but ignored it for the moment.  “Okay, see you then.  Have
fun camping.  Thank you again!!”

As soon as my mother closed the
front door she said to me, “You can’t actually be thinking about going back to
school on Monday?  I don’t want you anywhere near those monsters!”

“Mom…I
have
to go back to
school.  I have to finish my junior year, and it’s only a few weeks until
finals!”

“But, how can you stand to see them
again?  I don’t know if I like you being anywhere near any of them, even
if it is at school.  What if they try to do something else to you…”

“Mom, I don’t want them to think
they can just scare me off and besides…” I didn’t know how I was so certain of
this already, but it came out naturally, “I have Ron to protect me.  He
wouldn’t let them do anything to hurt me again.” 

Caelyn looked as surprised to hear
these words come from my mouth as I felt to utter them.

The next day was Sunday, so I had
all
day long
to be lectured by Caelyn.

When I padded down the stairs, as
late in the morning as I dared, I stopped halfway down.  I could hear her
on the phone. 

“Well, you’ll be lucky if I don’t
press charges!  Your daughter almost killed mine!!”  I’d never heard
her voice so full of malevolence.  I could only imagine that it was Katie
Parker’s mother at the other end of the conversation. 

Mom seemed to be listening then,
only answering with a clipped, “Mmm-hmm,” now and then.  She finished
with, “You can bet we will be!” before she slammed the phone so hard against
something I heard a sharp crack.  Surely it wasn’t her cell.

I waited a full minute and then
continued my way down to the living room.  When I hit the creaky stair,
she asked, “Maura, is that you, finally?”

I hadn’t slept in.  In fact I
had slept very little last night.  The only thing that had gotten me
through the night was to remember all the parts that happened after I’d woken
up in
his
arms.  I’d been playing
Final Fantasy
for about
the last 7 hours.

I answered her by walking into the
kitchen.  “Morning,” I said meekly.

“You’d better get dressed,” she
said, looking my still-pajama-clad body up and down.  “We’re going to have
company.”

“Huh?”  I started to have the
first twinges of dread creep into my stomach.  I prayed our visitor would
have nothing to do with the phone conversation she’d just had.

She grimaced.  “Katie is
coming over to apologize.”  She muttered something else under her breath,
but I was too shell-shocked to pay attention after that first part.

“No…way…Mom!  I’m not ready to
see her…to see any of them!  I don’t want to…”

She was furiously banging around
the kitchen now; a skillet was slammed down onto the eye of the stove. 
Caelyn was making breakfast?  I’d figured my lie would have earned me
permanent household-chore duty…even if I already did most of them anyway. 
My wonder at this was cut short though, when she turned back to me, furious.

“Maura, that is the least that girl
can do.  Let her lose some of that pride by being forced to apologize…to
start.  She ought to be groveling at your feet, praying I don’t have her
hauled off on attempted murder charges!”  Caelyn’s eyes flashed in a
dangerous way.

I knew I wouldn’t dissuade her, but
I had to add, “You know she won’t mean it.”

“We’ll see about that.  Now,
please go get dressed.  I want you to have time to eat before that
little…before they show up.”

As I was turning to go up the
stairs, knowing full well Caelyn was waaaaay too angry to argue with, I saw her
haul eggs and a sirloin out of the fridge.  Hmm, if this was part of being
punished, I would have to be bad more often.

As amazing as the breakfast tasted,
that was just how uncomfortable the “apology,” if you could call it that,
went.  Just being in front of Katie brought the whole night back, but for
Caelyn’s sake I focused my eyes on one of the knickknacks in the living room
and pretended the horrible girl wasn’t in my house.  It was all I could do
not to bolt and race up the stairs to the sanctuary of my room, but I knew down
deep that looking like a coward would only become another victory for the nasty
cheerleader and her friends. 

Katie’s mother was like an older,
more stern….and wrinkled….version of Katie.  Well, Katie with a tightly
wound, blonde knot on the back of her head, instead of the perky ponytail. The
leathery texture of her skin screamed that she’d seen the inside of a tanning
bed a few too many times, and made me feel suddenly lucky I had such a strong
aversion to UVs.  Katie’s own tanned skin said she was perfectly happy to
follow in her mother’s damaging footsteps, even with such a useful peek at the
future consequences.  I could tell the woman didn’t have an ounce of
remorse over what her demon spawn had done to me.  I knew she was only
here out fear inspired by Caelyn’s threat to press charges. 

When they left, I was released from
the greatest tension I think I’ve ever felt in my life.  I went up to my
room to cry out the memories Katie’s face had brought back, out of sight of my
well-intending mother.  And the fact that Katie’s face had been beet red,
that her voice had caught and faltered numerous times….well that hadn’t helped
me one tiny bit. 

As hard as it would be to believe,
I still wished for Monday to come.  Katie and her clan would be lost among
the sea of almost 800 other faces.  I knew I could ignore them easily amid
teachers and lessons to concentrate on.  And
he
would be
there.  Sunday seemed very long and uninteresting without Ron
around.  I wondered how he could so quickly have made such an important
place for himself within my inexperienced heart.  Caelyn watched my
restless cleaning and later, during TV time, clock watching, with suspicion in
her eyes.  I tried to be as casual as possible, but I felt like my eyes
were bugging out of my head with anticipation.

Finally it was time to shut them and
leave the world of the wakeful for a few numb, unknowing hours.  Somehow,
after the morning rush to get ready, I ended up at school. Caelyn must have
really put a scare into Katie.  Neither she nor Wendy showed up for
school.  Trent kept a careful distance, literally turning and walking in
the opposite direction when he saw me.  All in all, not a bad
day….especially the part where I ended up standing before
him
, and the
mandatory part of the day was over. 

I was still at a loss as how to
thank Ron for saving me the other night.  I looked up at him with what I
knew must be a dumbfounded expression.  “D-do you want to come
over?”  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew it was a mistake. 
If Caelyn came home and found us there alone together she would have kittens
all over the carpet.  At the same time, it was just too cruel to be
grounded and lose any possible time I had left to be with him—sure, why not set
myself up for unavoidable heartbreak?  Stupid, stupid, stupid…

He beamed, a soft, honest smile,
“Sure!” 

I gulped.  What had I done?

We walked out toward the parking
lot.  Was he going to ride the bus with me?  No, he kept walking past
the line of them parked in front of the school.  He must drive to school
every day.  I felt so childish; even though I rationalized he was almost
two years older than me and it was only normal for him to be a step ahead of me
in that respect.

He smiled that gentle smile of his
over his shoulder and reached back to grab my hand.  I felt myself
flush.  Oh god, a boy liked
me
. It was still so hard to
comprehend.   My heart was beating so fast it hurt.  Even with
my body assaulting me—and just because he held my hand—I was still nursing that
worry in a corner of my mind.  The nagging thought his trip to the jewelry
store had given birth to.  Was he betraying someone else when he was with
me?  Or was my overactive imagination running away with itself and reading
more into his intentions toward me than what was really there?  I didn’t
really have anything to compare all of this too, so I wasn’t quite sure if he
liked me like I thought he liked me.

I tried to stop the incoherent
tumble of thoughts through my head as he, once again, opened my door for
me.  I paused a minute to look at him.  His eyes were full of light,
a sparkling darkness I felt like I could fall into.  The way he returned
my gaze was so intense.  I couldn’t help it when the thought, that he
might have someone else he looked at in this way, crept to the front of my
mind.

“I don’t,” he seemed to suddenly
whisper to me, though his lips barely moved.

I broke the gaze then, blinking
rapidly, “Did you just say something?”

He looked a little dazed
himself,  “I-I don’t think I did…”

I got into the car quickly. 
My weirdness had scared off enough people.  I didn’t want him to become
yet another one of my lost causes.

I flipped my hair around and bent
my head slightly forward, so that my face was hidden, as he got into the
car.  My cheeks burned as I wondered what he thought about what had just
passed between us.    

As usual—it seemed to be a talent
of his—Ron had me feeling at ease very quickly.  He started the engine,
then reached down to dig through his cds, as if nothing out of the ordinary had
happened at all.  Maybe I was making too much of the whole thing… 

But it really did seem like I’d
just pulled an answer out of him, and to an unspoken question, no less. 
And he didn’t even realize he’d answered that question after.

The stress of moving had to be
getting to me.  I hadn’t been sleeping more than four or five hours each
night, after Caelyn had told me about the move.  After the awfulness at
the bridge, it dwindled to even less.  I’d spent most of last night
wandering around fighting monsters in
Final Fantasy VII
or Googling
poetic phrases, trying to find interesting music to download.  Yea, that
was it.  I just needed to rejuvenate my weary brain cells with a good
night’s sleep. 

I smiled as I settled on this line
of reasoning and thought I caught Ron’s posture relax out of the corner of my
eye.  Was he that attuned to my feelings?  For someone who had only
caught notice of me a little more than a week ago, that seemed
unrealistic. 

*Okay, that’s it, you are going to
bed early tonight,* I promised myself.

“I love this game!”  He
reached down to pick up the jewel case.  A ripple of pleasure went through
me to find that he liked something I did.

“Is it in your PlayStation?”

“It sure is!”…Then my momentary
glee faded.

He bent to turn on the TV and game
system. 

“Do you want to see my game
collection?” I asked then, desperate to drag him away from the screen.  I
paused, half in horror, half in fascination, as the opening movie scene
played.  Wincing as Squall’s blood was drawn, feeling a rush at the sight
of Rinoa’s angel wings.  When it ended and the game started, though, I
tried to distract him again.

“Come look at this!” I commanded in
a panic-laced voice.

He turned to look at me and
narrowed his eyes.   My eyes drifted back toward the graphics…then
back to his face.  He didn’t miss that.  He grinned a bit and started
to move the character around with the controller.

“We can do something else,” I
almost shrieked.

“Nah, I think I want to play this
for a bit.”  Dammit.

Then Rinoa spoke to Squall…only I’d
gone back and started my game over, entering a name of my own choosing for the
main character…so that she now spoke to ‘Ron.’  Of course when video game
Ron spoke back, it was to Maura, not Rinoa.

My face was so hot, I knew it had
to be glowing like a branding iron just taken from the fire.  He turned,
looked at my face, and fought fervently to hold back laughter.

“So, you’re naming your video game
characters after us?”  His face broke into a huge smile, “Nice,” he purred
the word in a deeper-than-usual voice that made my heart skip a beat. 

He kept up the pretense of playing
a few minutes more, but I could tell he was preoccupied with something
else.  He put the controller on the edge of my moon and star patterned
comforter and walked over to me. The thought that I was alone…in my
bedroom…with this boy who made my heart sprint in a way that felt unnatural,
made me feel a bit overwhelmed.  What would he expect we would be doing
while my mother was still at work?

“Weren’t you going to show me the
rest of your games?”  He just had a way of settling things, making them
comfortable, almost like he knew my worries—and offering the perfect solution
to push them aside.

“Sure,” I was so awestruck by him
that I didn’t move, even though my games were on a rack across the room. 

He put his palm up to my
cheek.  I felt it grow hot, but it wasn’t because of the temperature of
his skin.  My lips popped apart to allow for the increase in my
breathing.  This seemed to make him uncomfortable.  He tore his eyes
away from mine and looked around my room.  I thought he must be looking
for the games I’d failed to show him, but his gaze lingered on my
computer.  I was painfully aware of the
Fate Stay Night
screensaver
floating across the monitor.

“Ah, an anime fan too, huh?” 
Another thing in common?  That was just too much to hope for.

“Y-yes,” I supposed it was also too
much to hope for to sound anything near intelligent in his presence.

“I like that one too.  Really
a surprise about who Saber turns out to be isn’t it?” 

Okay, I
had
to be
dreaming.  I reached down to pinch the side of my leg.  His eyes
caught the movement and he laughed when he saw what I did.  Then his
expression twisted into something I couldn’t quite translate, it passed over
his handsome face so quickly.  He sauntered easily over to the computer,
then. 

“You have any music on here?” he
asked.  It was hard to miss how much he loved it. 

“You’re going to laugh at what a
silly question that is,” I told him.  I joined him at my little pine
computer desk and rolled the mouse around until I had the My Documents folder
open.  I let the cursor hover on the My Music folder until the little
information box popped up. 

“Wow…forty-three gigs…impressive,”
he admitted.  He put his hand over top of mine and took control of the
mouse.  He clicked down with my finger to open the folder and together we
scrolled through the choices.  He created a small playlist in the media
player and then walked over to the rack of games and dvd’s standing against the
far wall.  My hand was shaking, I noticed, when I’d removed it from the
stability of the mouse.