I feel the pull from her body to mine. So close I sense the buzz of her kinetic energy. My skin tingles as her magnetism draws me nearer. She’s breaking… breaking…
Then she’s gone, her tiny step back in retreat wider than the distance between planets. Disappointment cascades through me, setting my head spinning. I clear my throat, rewinding back a minute for the thread of our conversation.
“So, if we’re friends, you’ll be joining me at lunchtime, right?” I don’t need to see the tiny shake of her head to get the answer. “We’ll visit each other’s houses after school? We’ll hang out, right?”
Her mouth sets into a firm line. “No.”
“Then, we’re not friends and nothing’s changed, has it?”
I walk away before she can say anything more. Before she can dig her fingers any deeper into my heart only to twist it in my chest.
I walk away before I reveal to her how vulnerable she makes me.
Luckily, there’s now a fixed point to my frustration. A nice volunteer that I can take all my negative emotions out on.
I walk away and trail Keith into the maths block, even though my class is in the opposite direction.
CHAPTERFIFTEEN
CAYLON
Early Saturday afternoon, I arrive at Zach’s house in a bad mood. Not the best start to what amounts to a bout of baby-sitting. When Lily greets me at the door with a smile, I grunt and shuffle past her to the kitchen. The least they can do is feed me.
Despite having different fathers, Sierra is such a carbon copy of her sister that it’s disorientating. They’re almost the same height, both so much shorter than me, I feel like a giant. I can understand why Zach insists on dating girls who can barely manage the effort to grow above five feet.
Zach’s dad is in the kitchen. A development that takes me by surprise. In the years we’ve been friends, I’ve only spoken a few dozen sentences to him, the vast majority of those as greetings or farewells. Now, he sits on a stool, joking with Sierra and laughing out loud when Lily inserts a sarcastic comment. Zach stands with his arm around his girl, looking completely at peace.
Together, they look like a family. Something they are, I know that, but it’s weird to see all the same. A sliver of jealousy worms through my heart and I try to shake it off. My mother and I have a far closer bond than Zach and his dad, even if this current rapprochement lasts.
But it’s not that bit I envy.
I close my eyes and imagine Em leaning against the bench, chatting with me. Finding it as easy to be around me as Lily’s finds it with Zach. I want it so badly that I dig my fingers into the meat of my thigh, using it to distract myself from the real pain. The one I can’t make go away by itself.
“Here you go,” Sierra says, giving me a cautious smile as she lays a grilled cheese sandwich in front of me. “There’s some salad in the fridge if you want it.”
The memory of feeding Em floods my senses, the joy of pressing the cherry tomatoes between her lips, the light in her eyes. I drag my thoughts back to the room. “No, thanks,” I say, wrinkling my nose and earning a sympathetic laugh in return.
She might be a carbon copy but, unlike Lily, Sierra’s eyes are warm as they rest on me, and I have a sudden stab of regret that I don’t have any siblings.
“What about me?” Zach says with a pout. Sierra tilts her nose in the air. “It’s your house. I expect you can help yourself.”
“Good on you,” Zach’s dad Leonard says out of nowhere. “You stand your ground.”
“Besides,” Sierra continues. “You’re not injured.”
The bruises on my hand shouldn’t elicit any sympathy, given it was my choice to inflict them, but I accept her waiting on me, nonetheless.
Their housekeeper Zeta sneaks into the kitchen and starts wiping surfaces, blending into the family atmosphere rather than standing separately as an employee. As I eat the sandwich, surprisingly good, I wonder how the dynamics of this normally acerbic household have altered so much in such a short time.
“There’s a boy,” Sierra explains as I get to the reason I’m here today. “He keeps picking on me, but the school administration takes his side just because of—” She abruptly stops talking and stares at Lily, then drops her eyes and shrugs. “Just because. I don’t think the teacher likes me.”
“Been there, done that,” I mutter, scanning over the laptop she plonked in front of me. “You’ll need something with a bit more power if we’re going to get anywhere, but this’ll do for starters.”
“Your teachers didn’t like you?” Her eyes turn more adoring the longer she stares at me, a situation causing a frown to appear on Lily’s otherwise smooth forehead.
“Nobody liked him,” Zach says with customary eloquence. “He was a pain in the butt.”
I roll my eyes at the girl, and she gives a high-pitched laugh that soon has her sister repeating my gesture.
