Velvet (37 page)

Adrian came back with drinks, handing me a glass. I immediately took a sip in order to keep my hands busy. So did Adrian. Eventually, we all started talking and the tension around the table eased a bit. There was a little three-tiered thing in the middle set with tea-light candles, chocolates, and little snacks and we munched on them while we waited. Eventually the Muzak crap that had been playing as we walked in was replaced by current pop songs, and Tim, Stephanie’s date, announced that the dance had officially begun.

I’d only gone to one dance before, and my date had been a very sweet, but very bad dancer. I had no idea if I was any good at it because I’d spent the entire evening wishing I hadn’t gone in the first place.

I felt a hand on mine, and looked up. Adrian was standing there in a form-fitting Armani suit, lit softly by hundreds of candles, wavy dark hair brushing the collar of his jacket, gray eyes deep and calm.

“Would you like to dance?”

He looked so beautiful, all I could do was nod.

He held my hand, lacing our fingers as we walked slowly to the center of the gym. Three or four other couples had braved the dance floor, and we melded in with them, Adrian’s gaze sweeping up and down my dress slowly.

I rested my hand on his shoulder. We danced apart for a moment before he pulled me closer. I was afraid to look at him. His fingers were on my waist, tracing the edge of the velvet slowly. I wasn’t entirely sure if Trish’s Cinderella-dress plan was working, or if he was mocking me.
Look how well I can pretend to love you
. I desperately hoped the moment was sincere. But in all honesty, I couldn’t tell.

As the song began to fade, Adrian wrapped a loose curl around his finger, then slowly drew it out, scraping his knuckles softly down my shoulder. I was so hyperaware of his touch that I had no idea if we were still dancing or not.

“Did you really make this?” Adrian asked, running the tips of his fingers across the beading on the neck of my dress. All I could do was nod. “It’s beautiful,” he murmured. “It’s incredibly beautiful.”

He pressed his palm to the dress-less small of my back and I shivered. As other couples folded in around us, his lips skimmed my shoulder and my knees buckled. He tightened his hold on my waist to catch me, which was not good because it meant we were pressed even more tightly together. I made the further mistake of looking up at him and our eyes caught and held and we just breathed, teetering on some invisible edge and I honestly didn’t know which side I wanted to fall on. This had to be real. This
felt
real.

“Adrian—”

Someone bumped into us and I mentally said
thank God
at the same time I was thinking
damn it
. Adrian cleared his throat, and since the song was faster paced than before, we separated and looked away from each other and got swallowed up in the crowd that had finally gathered. Adrian excused himself to go get drinks and I didn’t realize he never came back. Some time later—I don’t know how long because the songs just kept coming one after the other and Trish was amazingly good at keeping us all herded on the dance floor and waving our arms dorkily in big, group dance moves—Tim went back on the mic and we all wandered back to our seats, sweaty and exhilarated. I found Adrian at our table, checking his phone. I scowled at him and he slipped it back into his pocket.

“All right,” said Tim when everyone had finally settled. “The court of Winter Neverland proudly presents its just-now-voted-upon leaders. Beginning with the least important, this year’s court jester is”—he paused and opened an envelope, then laughed abruptly, blushing—“uh, well, this year’s court jester is actually me.” Everyone laughed as he put a paper Burger King crown on his own head. “Okay, I have the results for the king and queen in my hand. Drumroll please.” A few boys beat the tables rapidly. “Thank you,” Tim said dryly. “Now I know why we don’t have a school band. All right, all right, your Winter Queen is … Jennifer Adams!”

We all looked over at Jenny, who was looking around as if unaware that her name had just been called. Trish nudged her. “Go on up there!”

Luke stood quickly and pulled her chair out, stunned that his date had turned out to be Winter Queen. Jenny walked in an adorably dazed fashion to the front, where Tim placed a laurel crown on her head. She glanced nervously back at us and everyone at our table gave her a thumbs-up and hollered at her obnoxiously.

“And the moment you’ve all been waiting for. Your Winter Court King is…” He dramatically double-checked the piece of paper in front of him. “Adrian de la Mara!”

I looked over at Adrian as everyone clapped and hollered. He looked uncomfortable, then resigned, and stood up, weaving through the tables. “Your Winter Court King and Queen, ladies and gentleman!”

Half a dozen flashes went off as Adrian and Jenny posed together for pictures, and I felt my gut twist. Seeing him stand next to her and smile—even if it was only for the cameras, even if it was only Jenny—highlighted the fact that we were never meant to be together. I clapped along with everyone else, cheering for Jenny because she deserved it, and then took a sip of cider to cover the sudden lump in my throat. My hand was shaking and I set it down.

“New York State of Mind” came on and everyone cheered and flooded the dance floor. I guess even out in the boondocks, there’s state pride. Before Adrian could make his way back to me, I stood and walked over to Stephanie, suddenly not wanting to be near him for a few minutes.

“Caitlin!” she said when I reached her table. She and Tim were the only couple there, so I took an empty seat and sat down.

“Nice announcing, Tim!” I gave him an exaggerated high-five.

He grinned back. “Thanks.” I noticed that he was looking very nice in a traditional suit, and his hair was a normal, natural brown instead of its usual stark black. Stephanie seemed to glow with happiness.

“That is a gorgeous color on you, Steph,” I said. “Really compliments your hair. Don’t you think so, Tim?”

Tim blushed and mumbled, “Yeah.”

“And Tim, seriously, nice job with the mic tonight; they couldn’t have picked a better announcer. Right, Steph?”

She blushed and nodded.

“Well,” I said, mission accomplished, “Adrian’s getting lonely without me. You two have a nice night.”

As I stood up to leave, they were both blushing and smiling and adorable. I went back to Adrian feeling happy—

—which all vanished the moment I saw him sitting with his arm strewn across the back of my chair, a frown darkening his face as he was very intentionally
not
talking with anyone else at our table. With the Armani suit, the low light, and his natural chiseled-ness, he looked like an asshole. I saw Ben ask him a question, and Adrian flat out
ignored
him. It was suddenly so obvious that he was only here because he had to be, because it was part of our grand lie. He was a great actor. He was an incredible pretender. And none of it was real. Whatever that thing had been at the cabin, at Christmas, that moment when he’d whispered my name—that was gone.

And just like that, I wanted to be home. Not ranch-home, not bedroom-home, but
home
. Mystic. Connecticut. The ocean, my mom, my house, my
life
.

I walked up to Adrian and stopped abruptly. “Can we go?” I asked the back of his head, not wanting to sit.

He looked up at me, then checked his watch. “I think we should wait another twenty or thirty minutes.”

I was going to cry, damn it. “I’d like to leave now,” I said again, struggling to keep my voice from catching.

Without waiting for a reply, I waved good-bye to Trish, grabbed my coat, and headed for the door. I hadn’t even had time to put it on before Adrian caught up to me in the parking lot.

“What is going on?” he demanded, pulling me to a stop.

“Nothing,” I said, wrenching away so he wouldn’t see that I was crying. “Let’s just go, please.”

“For God’s sake, I did everything right,” Adrian said, throwing his hands in the air. “I got the corsage, I wore a suit, I borrowed the car, we danced. Why are you upset with me?”

I just stared at him, tears mutinously coursing down my cheeks. “This isn’t a game, Adrian. It’s not a show or a play, this is my
life
. This is the dance, this is high school, this is us, and you’re not
here
.”

He looked at me like I was insane. “I’m here. I’m here every day. This was the setup, this was how we decided to play it—you’re the one who came up with the rules, that stupid chore chart. If you’re not happy with all of this, you have no one to blame but yourself.”

I sucked in a sharp breath, trembling.

That was cruel.

There was no way I could justify his response, or explain it away for him. He was being mean, and I was done.

“Adrian,” I whispered after a long moment. “I’m breaking up with you.”

He stared at me. “You can’t do that.”

I stared right back at him. “Yes. I can.”

Leaving him speechless, I walked back into the gym and found Trish. She saw the tears on my face and immediately pulled me into a dark corner where I bawled my eyes out on her shoulder. She and Ben immediately packed up and drove me home. I had to lie to Joe—again—and say that Adrian’d had a flat tire, so Trish had given me a lift. I told them the dance was wonderful, and that I was tired and going to bed.

But of course it wasn’t over. Breaking up with Adrian didn’t mean it was over.

So cue the nightmare.

It felt like the first one. Where I’d woken up in a dark room, unable to move. Completely paralyzed. A light formed somewhere overhead, growing slowly brighter. In front of me, a shape materialized in the darkness until I saw it was a person. Scratch that, a kid.

It was Lucian.

He was sitting with his head bowed forward so that his curly light-brown hair fell over and shadowed his face. It took an eternity for the light to brighten enough to see that he clutched my book in his hands,
The Adventures of Frankie the Boy
.

Suddenly, his head rolled back.

His aviator goggles were gone. His eyes were wide open, and they were completely black.

He was dead.

Out of the darkness, a white figure slowly approached. Nearing, I realized it was my mother, dressed in the World War II nurse’s outfit she’d worn before. She knelt by Lucian’s chair and smiled at me sadly with her bright red lipstick. I didn’t know what she was doing here, but I knew it was bad. She slid Lucian into her arms like he weighed nothing. I watched helpless as the book slid out of his fingers and fell to the ground. She walked away into the darkness, taking Lucian with her, until they disappeared completely.

19

FINALS

A week after winter formal, I woke up to the clatter of pans, the patter of feet running up and down the stairs, and the calls back and forth between Norah, Rachel, and Joe. It was seven in the morning, and I’d managed to get in about five hours of sleep—three before my nightmare and two after, once the sun was really up. It was a school day, but we were leaving at ten to head for Richmond, Virginia—the site of the East Coast Equestrian Finals, where Norah was about to kick ass—so Joe and Rachel had decided to just let us stay home until we left rather than pick us up early from school.

I was grateful, because I couldn’t handle much more whispering and hushed conversations about the breakup. Adrian hadn’t called me over the weekend, he hadn’t fought for me or talked to me or so much as looked at me at school. Which was fine, except it was very obvious to the rest of the student body that Adrian and I were no longer a thing. Even through my exhaustion, I could tell that little else was being discussed at the lunch tables. On the supernatural side of things, I’d heard nothing from Mariana or the Council. Which was fine with me—as far as I was concerned, they could go be miserable and ancient all they wanted if they’d just leave me alone.

Groaning, I rolled out of bed, wrapping myself in my green quilt like a mummy, and headed downstairs to snag a cup of coffee before I took a shower. I could hear the washing machine and dryer going and bet Rachel was trying to do some last-minute housekeeping before we were gone for the weekend. Norah was running around with various pieces of clothing in her hands looking frazzled, and Joe was conspicuously gone—probably outside checking on the horses—where it was quiet.

I actually took the coffee with me into the shower, setting it on the window ledge above the spray of the nozzle. Halfway through rinsing my hair, the water gushed violently, then immediately relented, drizzled, and stopped altogether, then spurted on again, but lukewarm, and then cool, and then ice cold. I yelped and shut it off. A knock sounded on the bathroom door.

“Caitlin?” Rachel called, her voice muffled.

“Yeah?” I replied.

“We had to shut off the hot water.”

“What happened?” I called back.

“The water heater’s leaking and the laundry room flooded.”

Even through the door she sounded like she was about to cry. Not only had she had a load in the wash that was half finished, but we were supposed to leave for Virginia in less than an hour and it was the weekend, so getting a plumber to come all the way out here would be a nightmare.

“Hold on,” I told her. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

I dried off quickly and threw my clothes on. I’d gotten most of the shampoo out of my hair, toweled off the rest, then twisted it up into a bun and stuck a pencil in it because I was pretty sure Norah had stolen all my hair bands. When I stepped out of the bathroom, Rachel was gone, but I could hear someone in my aunt and uncle’s bedroom, so I peeked inside. Rachel was on her laptop searching for plumbers. Norah sat beside her looking dazed. Joe came up the stairs without any shoes on, but his socks and the bottom of his jeans were soaked. Rachel looked up as he came in, but he just shook his head.

“Hello?” she said into the phone. “Yes, um, our hot water heater is leaking.” She listened for a few moments. “The laundry room flooded and it’s spreading into the hall.” She listened again, eyes glistening. “I don’t know. Joe?” she asked, looking up at her husband. “Is there corrosion?” He nodded. She repeated the information into the phone and listened again and then choked when she said, “Not until five?”