Sleepless (17 page)

“There’s something really weird going on. And you’re part of it.” She takes a deep breath. “I’ve met you before, haven’t I?”

“No.” But I’m not very good at lying. “Not exactly.”

“Did you know Griffin?”

I nod a little.

“From …?”

She whirls around and brings her eyes to meet mine. I swallow. If she holds my gaze for much longer, I know I will tell her everything. I break eye contact quickly. “He is …
was
, I mean, an acquaintance.”

Of course I can see the puzzlement on her face. She brings her hair forward, over her ear, to cover her scars, suddenly self-conscious. “That message you had. Asking me to be careful. I’ve been trying to figure out who could have sent it, because other than my parents, nobody else would care that much about me. It was from Griffin, right?”

“Yes.”

“He gave you a message because he wanted to protect me? But why … unless he knew he was going to die?” She stops. Her eyes widen. “Wait … when did he give you that message?”

I know she is putting the pieces together, and all I can do is stand there and watch the curtain I’ve placed between us unravel. “Julia, I …,” I begin, but I don’t know what else to say.

“He died weeks ago, but strange things have been happening since then. Things that make me feel like he’s still here.” She taps on her temple. “I know it’s crazy.”

I watch her silently, trying not to leak anything, but I know it isn’t working.

She gasps. “So it’s true. He gave you that message
after
he died, didn’t he?”

CHAPTER 23
Julia

“J
ulia …,” he says, looking away.

Okay. Did I just say that aloud? That I think my dead boyfriend is contacting me from beyond the grave, and Eron is the conduit? Way to win friends and influence people. “Um, forget I ever said anything,” I say lamely, noticing a storm drain that I would love to climb into.

“I don’t think you’re crazy, Julia,” he says after a moment.

Well, sure he doesn’t … yet. He doesn’t know that I could have sworn I saw him disappear into thin air last night. “Really?”

“Really.” He says it like he means it. Griffin would have been on to insult number twelve by now.

“Who are you?” I ask softly. “Are you someone who can communicate with the dead? Have you been speaking with—”

He extends his hand as
if to say,
Hold it there, little lady
. He’s obviously trying to calm me, because I can feel the heat swirling in my face and the pounding in my temples, as if there’s a storm inside me raging to get out. “No, nothing like that.”

I look down at the olive skin of his hand. There’s something all too familiar about the way he holds his hand above my shoulder so that it’s almost, but not quite, touching my skin. “Why do I feel like I’ve known you longer than just three days?”

“It’s not important who I am,” he says. “The important thing is that you—”

“Stay safe,” I say, rolling my eyes. “I have parents who warn me about that every day. Why
you
?”

He doesn’t answer my question, just stands there, fidgeting from one foot to the other. It’s odd that at times he seems so mature, beyond-his-years mature, yet sometimes, he’s almost like a little boy.

“Where did you get that scar? On your shoulder?”

He shakes his head. “No matter. It was a long time ago.”

I know that they’re obvious, that he’s probably seen them before, but I lift the hair from my cheek and tilt my chin into the sunlight. I’m not sure why I want to tell him now, but I’m not sure of so many things when it comes to him. Maybe it’s because I’ll go mad if I don’t get answers from him now. “I’ll tell you my story if you tell me yours,” I whisper.

“You don’t have to say a thing,” he says, gently taking my hand away from my cheek. It’s as if he already knows how difficult it would be to tell. As if he already knows everything anyway. He says, “Your beloved … Griffin. Did you trust him?”

“Yeah,” I say immediately, but the second the word leaves my
lips, my resolve weakens. “I mean, I guess. We had a weird relationship.”

“Weird?”

“Well, he liked to joke a lot. He’d laugh at a funeral. Nothing was ever serious to him. But he was a good guy.”

“And he loved you.”

“Yes. Well. We never said so, in so many words.”

He smiles. “It only takes three.”

“No, you see … we didn’t talk about anything serious. Ever. And I kind of liked that.”

He looks puzzled. “You did?”

“Well, yeah. I’m … Something happened to me when I was a kid. And afterward, everyone walked on eggshells around me. But Griffin didn’t. We never talked about serious stuff like that. He treated me like anyone else. Which was good.”

I bite my tongue. There I go again, spilling my soul to him, as if we’re old friends and didn’t just meet three days ago. Maybe it’s because I’d never have been caught having this kind of serious discussion with Griffin and I’m starved for a heart-to-heart. Pathetic. I can just imagine Griffin pretending to throw a rope around his neck and hang himself. “And we were not really an emotional, lovey-dovey type of couple. Why am I telling you this? I need to shut up.”

He laughs. “No, you don’t. I like hearing you talk.”

“Really?” I turn to him, and his face is serious as he nods. No indication that he’s going to poke fun at me. “You really don’t think I’m a nut job?”

He laughs. “Not at all.”

“I like talking to you, too.”

I’m just starting to feel better, like maybe I’m not completely
losing it, when suddenly my flip-flop catches on an uneven piece of pavement and I fall forward. I land half in the grass, half on the sidewalk. My palms and my knees break my fall, but I scrape the left one of each on the pavement. Blushing, I roll over onto my backside, inspecting my bleeding body parts. While this is when Griffin and Bret would laugh and say, “Have a nice trip?” or something, Eron rushes to my side and pulls a handkerchief out of the pocket of his baggy jeans. Two thoughts hit me at once: First, what guy who isn’t eighty years old carries a handkerchief? And secondly, is it possible ever to meet Eron without having an injury? Is there a reason I become a bumbling idiot around him?

My palm is just a little red and coated with gravel, so Eron brushes the grit away from my knee and clamps the cloth over it. It’s not bleeding as much as the cut on my shin yesterday did, but now I have a wound on each of my legs. I look like I shaved with sandpaper. I’m going to make a great impression in New York.

The injuries sting, but suddenly there’s a throbbing in my ankle. When he pulls me to my feet, that throbbing becomes a shooting pain. I howl.

“Is your ankle twisted?” he asks, settling me back down. He seems reluctant at first and blushes again, but eventually he gently places his fingers on either side of my ankle, moving upward. At one point, the pain is so bad I whimper.

“I think so,” I say. “I am officially a moron.”

He reaches down and picks me up. He hefts me into his arms easily, as if I’m just a bag of groceries. “I’m taking you home.”

That sounds just fine to me. “But I live a mile away,” I say, embarrassed.

“Not at all,” he answers. It’s a hot day, and his breathing isn’t labored, so I relax a little, even though I still feel like a goober. “I just hope it is not broken.”

“Let’s not overreact,” I say. “I’ll be fine.”

He carries me the entire way without so much as getting red in the face. I hand him my keys and he holds me up with one arm while opening the front door, then lifts me easily up the stairs. I’m about to direct him where to go, but he never hesitates; he steps to the right and twists open the door to my room, without a word. A weird sensation creeps over me as he lays me in my bed, lifts the sheets out from under me, and covers me. I’m only marginally aware of my hot-pink thong panties lying on the shag carpet, near his feet. How did he know which bedroom was mine?

“Thanks,” I say, nonchalantly reaching down and sweeping the panties under my bed. That’s when I notice my old Zac Efron poster, across the room, framed by my posters of the Eiffel Tower and Big Ben. I’ve been meaning to tear it down ever since I started dating Griffin, but now it hangs there, in all its glory, a testament to my lameness. Strangely, though, Eron seems to be focused completely on me.

“Not at all. I will telephone the management of the soda fountain and tell them of this unfortunate incident.”

“You mean, you’re not going in?”

He shakes his head. “And who would play nurse to you? I think you need to stay off that ankle.”

“No, really, I’m fine….”

He smiles. “I insist.”

I settle back in the pillows. “You really don’t have to.”

“Julia …,” he says, wagging a finger at me to say,
Stop arguing
.

“Fine. Um, I think my mom has some soda in the fridge. No egg creams, unfortunately.”

Eron laughs, his eyes never leaving mine. They’re focused in such a way that makes me a little queasy. Or maybe that’s just the heat. Or maybe it’s that right then, I realize that Eron doesn’t seem to take notice of his surroundings at all, as if he’s not interested. Or as if he’s already seen my bedroom a thousand times before.

“You’re Italian, is that right?” my mom says, inspecting Eron as she ladles gazpacho into his bowl. A little of it spills onto the table.

He nods politely.

I hope Eron realizes what he’s in for. My mom could make the most hardened of criminals weep. Add my father, and it’s past cruel and unusual. If Eron thought my questioning was harsh, he may end up jumping from something very high at the end of this meal. That’s why I only brought Griffin around my parents once. Only once.

My mom is smiling sweetly, but that’s just one of her tactics: make them think she’s on
their
side, then strike. “Do I know your parents?”

“Mom …,” I groan.

“They’re … deceased, ma’am,” he says.

She purses her lips. I wait for her to offer condolences but that would reveal she has a heart and shift the power into his court. “So where do you live?”

“With my brother. On Hart Avenue.”

“Hart?” She turns to me and glares. I can read her mind:
So
did he have anything to do with the $1,200 repair bill for the RAV4?
I just smile sheepishly and shrug. “Are you in school?”

“Not any longer,” he says.

“You’ve graduated?”

“I … left school, after eighth grade,” he says. “I needed to find a job.”

My dad nearly chokes on his soup. “But … school is very important!” he chimes in, like a public service announcement. My mom’s eyes narrow in disgust. Normally she’d have pity for a guy whose parents were dead and who had to drop out of school to get a job, but because her only child brought him home to dinner, because he’s a guy and
who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men
, he’s bad. I kick her under the table. She turns to me. I try to communicate telepathically:
You are not interrogating a terrorist. Stop with the third degree
.

She seems to get the picture, but then my dad starts in. “What are your plans for the future?”

“Dad,” I mutter, scooping the soup into my spoon and letting it dribble back into my bowl. My mom is always trying random recipes she gets from various shady sources; this “gazpacho” idea came from the back of a can of lima beans and tastes like water. “Stop.” I mean, questions about his future? Please. I see dinner in our future. And possibly me lunging across the table and gouging out my father’s eyes with my spoon.

Eron smiles and wipes his mouth with a napkin. “I am interested in going back to school,” he says, unwavering. He takes another sip of the soup. “I’d like to go back for architecture.”

I stop trying to telekinetically murder my parents, and stare at him, forgetting I’m holding my spoon. It falls to the table with a
loud clatter. “Whoops,” I say as green goo splashes across the table and onto the front of my hoodie. But come on, trying to butter me up by pretending to have the same interests as me? Please.

I take a napkin and start to wipe up the mess, and then I realize something…. Did I ever tell him that that was what I was going to major in at college? That I had dreams of designing buildings, too? I don’t think I did. He just goes right on slurping his soup, not looking for a reaction from me. I think he’s serious.

“Mrs. Devine, this soup is delicious,” he says earnestly.

My dad and I both gape at him, then halfheartedly agree, just to be polite. The soup is good? For what? Considering that his apartment was littered with days of crusty old cereal bowls, I guess he isn’t too much of a culinary expert himself.

My mom beams and doesn’t say a word. I don’t think anyone has complimented a meal of hers since before she was married. Even better, he asks for seconds. Eron has silenced the beast. Score.

Afterward, I hobble down the hallway and Eron sets me up on the couch, in front of the television. He lifts my foot and props a pillow under it. I get the feeling he’s played nurse before, because his touch is gentle. Just like with the kiss last night, everywhere he touches begins to tremble. I hope he can’t see what a bowl of Jell-O I am around him.

“Can I have the remote, please?” I ask him.

He tilts his head, looking perplexed. “The …?”

“Remote,” I say, pointing toward the television. It’s sitting there, right on top of the entertainment center, plain as can be, and yet when he walks there, he fidgets for a moment, clearly
unsure. Then he picks it up and hands it to me. “Thanks. Want to watch
House
with me?”

He purses his lips. “Watch the house? Is something going to happen to it?”

“You don’t watch much TV, do you?”

The show starts. He shakes his head and sits down on the couch beside me. Instantly, he’s enraptured. Some kid is having a convulsion on an airplane. Eron’s eyes bulge. I can almost hear his heart beating, even from a cushion’s length away. The kid flops around a little in the narrow aisle, white foam dribbling from his chin, and then it cuts to the opening credits. I don’t think Eron has taken a breath since the show began. He turns to me. “That was … terrifying.”