Sacred (18 page)

With Traveler put away, I turned my attention to Delilah. It may have been my imagination, but she seemed a little huffy today.

“Come on, girl, don’t be jealous,” I teased her, rubbing her velvet forehead the way I knew she liked.

Delilah could have something of a temper, but she forgave quickly too. By the time we were out on the trail she moved along happily, graceful and beautiful as always.

The trails were damp from last night’s rain; I felt the sponginess of the earth with each step she took.

Though the sun was out and the air was dry, it wasn’t warm on the trail. The shadows cast by the trees seemed longer than they’d been just a few weeks ago.

If Ronny were alive, he’d be deep into his first quarter at UCLA. He’d be preparing for his first set of midterms. He’d be able to commiserate with me over my first—and last, I hoped—hangover.

And if I told him about what had happened with Andy, he would have taken the next boat over to the island and kicked Andy’s ass.

As if feeling my sadness, Delilah took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. I stroked her mane, and then gave her a squeeze with my legs, urging her to pick up a canter. We loped down the trail, and the cool air laced like fingers through the strands of my hair, and though my sadness weighed heavily in my core, I breathed deeply of the autumn air and felt joy, the joy of being alive.

By Monday, my hangover had faded to a sheepish memory, but the incident with Andy had not. He had sent me a string of texts the day before, ranging in tone from apologetic to annoyed at my failure to respond. I had deleted them cleanly, one after another.

Lily—as dependable as she was fabulous—met me outside my house at 7:50 sharp. She handed me a croissant from our local bakery and a mocha. There was whipped cream on top, a gorgeous dollop of white confection. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had whipped cream.

Carefully, I drank a sip of the hot, chocolatey drink, the sweet cream cold against my lips. Ahh.

“Details,” she demanded.

Lily had texted me too—hers, I’d answered, though hedgingly.
Left party with Will
, I’d written.
More later
.

Now, apparently, was later. Lily did not look as if she was willing to wait any longer for the scoop. But I remembered Will’s question—“Can you keep a secret?”—and I knew I’d be giving Lily the abbreviated version.

As we walked, we nibbled our croissants. I opened with, “So Andy got sort of pushy on Saturday.”

“Did he hurt you?”

I remembered my torn unitard, now shoved deep into the trash. “No, not really,” I said. “But I don’t know what would have happened if Will hadn’t shown up.”

“I heard a rumor that he punched Andy?” Lily’s eyes were bright with the drama of it all.

I hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah, he sure did.”

“Oh my god. I saw you leaving the party. Will had his arm
around you like some kind of guardian angel. I called your name, but he whisked you out of there before I could get across the dance floor.”

“I didn’t hear you. I was pretty drunk,” I admitted.

Lily shook her head. “You never should have mixed your drinks,” she advised sagely. “If you start with beer, you stick with beer. End of story.”

“That would be good advice, if I ever planned to drink again,” I said. “But I’m pretty sure I’m going to be a teetotaler from here on in. Alcohol and I are not a pretty picture.” I remembered curling over the toilet, and shivered.

“Well,” Lily said, taking a long sip from her mocha, “about three minutes after you and Will left, Andy stumbled down the stairs, looking like hell and sort of holding his stomach, and he yelled, ‘Party’s over!’ He and Connell kind of herded everyone outside. And it was pouring! By the time I got to the golf cart, my dress was completely soaked. Andy had better hope that the dry cleaner can get the water stains out of my leather boots, or I am sending him the bill for a new pair. Those boots are, like, my soul in leather.”

I admitted that the boots were, indeed, fabulous, but my heart wasn’t really into the discussion of rain-damaged leather. We had reached the campus, and I scanned the small cluster of students.

There he was. Standing slightly apart from the others, Will held his books and shifted his weight, as if nervous. Our eyes caught, and he smiled, a sideways half smile. His hand lifted in a wave.

Lily watched as my mouth widened in a grin. I waved
back, maybe a bit too exuberantly. She raised an eyebrow knowingly.

“So,” she said. “Anything else you want to tell me?”

Luckily, the warning bell rang.

When I walked into American Lit, Andy was already at his desk—same row as mine, three seats back. He tried to catch my eye, but I refused to meet his glance.

He must have anticipated this, because resting on my desk was a neatly folded square of notebook paper.
Scarlett
was written in Andy’s hand across the front.

Using the edge of my notebook, I scooted the note to the edge of my desk. I felt Andy’s gaze boring into the back of my neck, but I didn’t turn to face him.

Mr. Blaine was doing some song and dance about the contributing factors of the Jazz Age—soaring stock market, advent of new technology, shockingly short hemlines, Prohibition and speakeasies.

I slipped comfortably into note-taking mode. I was pretty sure I knew where this was all headed:
The Great Gatsby
was one of the landmark Jazz Age novels, and we’d just read some Fitzgerald short stories the week before, so I wasn’t surprised when Mr. Blaine opened the cabinets at the back of the room and recruited volunteers to hand out copies of the novel.

Once we each had a copy, Mr. Blaine started making a list on the board of key characters and settings. I tuned out here, preferring to encounter the story on my own as I read.

At last I turned my attention to the note. I unfolded it and smoothed it on my desk. I wasn’t interested in the words on it, though; I unfocused my eyes so the letters blurred
together, and concentrated on tearing the paper neatly into long, thin strips, ten in all, then piling up the strips and tearing them horizontally, again and again, until I had a nice little pile of apology confetti.

When the bell rang, I gathered up my books and swept the confetti pieces into my hand, dropping them into the trash can next to the door. My heart felt free, like a bird that had flown from its cage, and I floated from the room and down the hall.

Will wasn’t in the library at lunchtime. For a moment I felt a surge of anxiety—I had been so sure his smile this morning had meant something. I was embarrassed to admit to myself that I had expected him to be waiting for me in what I considered to be our place … the library.

I considered going to the cafeteria, but I had brought a lunch from home, and somehow I knew that Will wouldn’t be there, anyway. So I closed my eyes and considered where he might be.

I felt a faint breeze coming from the open door at the end of the hallway. I heard birds too, and then, opening my eyes, I saw another note with my name on it, this one resting on the short table next to the chairs where Will and I had sat.

He wrote in cursive. I couldn’t think of another boy I knew who actually chose to write in script; they all scrawled awkward block letters, or at best strung together two or three straggly letters at a time.

I liked the way my name looked written by his hand. This note I read, eagerly. It was short:
Outside, under the tree
.

I knew at once where he meant. At the far end of the
field grew a graceful elm, one of the few semiprivate spots on our small campus.

Tucking the note into my pocket, I went outside.

The ground had dried after the big storm, and I found Will reclining on the grass beneath the tree, resting on his elbows, ankles crossed. His eyes were closed, his face turned up toward the sun, inviting its rays.

My feet were quiet in the long grass, and he didn’t hear me coming. This gave me time to study his face. He looked beatific.

His dark hair curled in soft rings and waves across his forehead, over his ears. His whole face looked divinely relaxed, and his mouth seemed plump as ripe fruit. I ran my tongue across my own lips. To kiss him …

His eyes opened. My gaze felt suddenly paralyzed, and I was certain he had felt me staring at him.

“Umm … hi,” I mumbled, suddenly finding something very interesting to examine by my feet.

He sat up and held his hand out to me. “You want to sit down?”

My hand slid into his. It was a good thing I sat down, because my knees were shaky.

He leaned back again under the tree. Marbled sunlight filtered through the elm leaves, and his face was bathed in light and shadow. I leaned back next to him, our entwined fingers linking us together.

“You feeling better?” he asked.

“Mmm-hmm.” I frowned. “But you were gone when I woke up.”

“I wanted to stay. But I wasn’t sure if you’d still want me there … after everything I told you.”

He was actually nervous! About how
I
might react to him!

“I would have liked it if you’d been there,” I answered quietly. “It’s nice to be with you now.”

He smiled, and the tension faded from his face. “It’s good to hear you say that,” he confessed. “I wasn’t sure if you’d think I was crazy.”

“I think you’re
something
,” I said, “but not crazy.”

He laughed. I flushed with happiness for having made him laugh.

We sat for a while in companionable silence, watching the breeze stir the leaves in the tree. One drifted gently to the ground.

“Got anything good in there?” asked Will, gesturing to my lunch bag. I let go of his hand and peeled open the bag, pulling out a cheese-and-avocado sandwich, a small plastic bag of pretzels, and an apple.

“Are you hungry?” I offered him half of the sandwich.

“Thanks.” He sat up and bit into it. I watched him chew and swallow, and then I took a bite of the other half.

I pulled my metal water bottle from my backpack and unscrewed the lid.

When the sandwich was gone, I took a bite of the apple, more to have something to do with my hands than anything else. Will was watching me, so I held the apple out to him.

“Want a bite?”

His smile was slow. “Are you tempting me, woman?”

I blinked. Then I recalled the Garden of Eden, the fruit, Adam and Eve, and I laughed. “Are you tempted?” I asked.

Will nodded, serious suddenly. He leaned across and put his mouth on the apple still in my hand. As he bit into it, a shudder of pleasure coursed through me.

Something shifted between us. It was as if, without speaking any words, we’d come to an agreement. When we heard the bell, Will stood and offered me his hand. I took it, and we walked back across the field, our tree at our backs, together.

My next two classes passed in a haze, Andy’s beseeching glance in the hallways easy enough to ignore. Finally, it was time for drama.

Mrs. B was busy filling the board with information about social satires. I noticed there had been a rearrangement of seats in the classroom: flushing happily, I saw that Will had displaced Brandon Becker in the seat next to mine. Brandon didn’t seem too affected by the change; he was hamming it up to Katie Ellis, who did seem less than pleased by the rearrangement.

I grinned at Will, feeling shy. His returning smile was like the sun—wide, bright, beautiful.

“Okay, people, what can you tell me about Oscar Wilde?” Mrs. B asked.

“Wasn’t he a fag or something?” called out Connell from the back of the room.

I rolled my eyes. I still had a hard time understanding what Connell was doing in this class; it could only be that Mrs. B had a reputation for being an easy A.

“Or something,” answered Mrs. B. “Rein in the homophobia a little, will you, Connell? Oscar Wilde was famously
homosexual as well as famously creative and clever. This spring, we’re going to do one of his productions—
The Importance of Being Earnest
.”

A pile of playbooks rested on her desk. “Connell,” she ordered, “make yourself useful and hand those around, won’t you?”