Fractured Light (5 page)

She glanced at me sideways. “I heard you were either sick a lot, or angry and wouldn’t play.” May turned off the ignition and jumped out of the car. The rusted metal door vibrated when she slammed it shut.

“What do
you
think the reason was?” I asked, trying to close my door.

“You have to slam it, remember?”

I slammed it.

“I think,” May began, “that it was a combination of both.”

“Do explain?”

“I think sometimes you get sick of everybody’s crap. Sure they love you when you play great, but the second you mess up, they offer no sympathies. I’d probably miss some games too, just to make them mad. Show them how much they need me.”

I laughed as I opened the glass door leading into the restaurant; a breath of air conditioning ruffled my hair. “I would never deliberately miss a game, and I would never play a game unless I was giving it my all, which I admit doesn’t look that great sometimes.”

“I saw you play soccer a couple of times last year. You were incredible one game: fast, shifty, but then another game you just stood there. You wouldn’t even run. What was that all about?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t feel good.”

We moved to the front of the line. A pimple-faced cashier with red curly hair stared at us expectantly.

“You didn’t look sick,” May said, staring up at the menu.

I was about to order but turned around, suddenly defensive. “I don’t lie. I don’t pretend, and I’m not spiteful. I didn’t ask you to be my friend, May. If you really feel the same as others you can walk away right now.”

May frowned. “That’s not what I meant. I’m sorry, really I am. If you say you didn’t feel well, then I believe you. Friends?”

I took a deep breath. “Of course.”

“Hey, May,” a male voice called after we placed our order. “Come eat with us.”

May glanced behind her. “Be there in a sec.” She turned to me. “Go sit with Adam when you get your food. I’ll be right there.”

“Adam? As in Adam who was riding with Christian?”

“Yeah, I guess,” she replied nonchalantly.

I looked for an empty table by the window. “Actually I’m going to eat over there.”

Pimple-face dropped my food on a tray as if it were a case of nails; several fries slipped from the greasy fry bag. May let out an exaggerated sigh. “You can’t be serious? Just go over and sit down. It’s not a big deal.”

“You know how it is with me. Let’s keep it that way.”

“Do you want me to sit with you?”

I looked back to the lone table I’d found. Sunlight spilled in from the window, encasing the two-top as if it were in its own single world. “No. I’m cool.”

“All right. If you change your mind, you know where I’ll be.”

After we split ways, I set my tray down and slid into the seat. I really didn’t mind eating alone; it was something I was used to. I closed my eyes and let the light from the sun warm my skin.

“Why don’t you come over and join us?” a gentle voice asked.

I opened my eyes and blinked once, twice, three times. I stared at the boy standing across from me as if I could see right through him.
Christian
. His eyebrows arched slightly, almost hopeful. I looked down.

When I didn’t answer, he said, “I’m Christian,” and held out his hand. His skin was light bronze like a perfectly baked cookie right out of a hot oven. I didn’t reach for his hand, as appetizing as it looked. Instead I took a sip of water.

Christian cleared his throat and shifted his weight. I wasn’t making this easy on him, but I wasn’t deliberately trying to be rude. I just couldn’t figure out why he was talking to me.

He asked again, “Will you join us?”

I swallowed. The cold liquid slid down my throat and hit my stomach. The shock of it helped me find my voice. “I appreciate the offer, but I’ll just eat here in the sun.”

He nodded, as if thinking. A red car blaring rap music drove away from the drive-thru window; the bass shook the glass. He waited for it to pass before he asked, “Can I join you?”

“Why?” I blurted before I had a chance to think how that might sound.

Christian didn’t miss a beat. “Because I like it here too. There’s something about the sun’s light.” He looked up and out the window toward the sky. “It’s peaceful, like lying in a boat in the middle of a perfectly still lake.”

My jaw dropped. I’d never heard anyone speak about light that way. I didn’t know if I should be impressed or frightened.

Christian frowned. “That sounded stupid. Sometimes I say lame things. Adam’s always giving me a hard time.”

“Have you known Adam long?”

Christian looked back to where he’d been sitting. “Hold that question. Let me get my food.” He walked away.

I started to tell him I hadn’t said he could eat with me, but stopped. So I eat lunch with a boy? Big deal. He probably wouldn’t talk to me after this anyway. I took a bite of my cheeseburger and tilted my head so I could hear what he was going to say.

Ultra sensitive hearing is another trait I’d inherited, but not from my mother. My father had joked that it was the only useful thing he’d given me. Whenever I asked where he got his good hearing, he’d simply shrug and give me a mischievous grin.

“Later guys. I’m eating with Llona,” Christian said.

“Why?” Mike spat with a mouth full of food. I practically heard hamburger chunks spray from his mouth and hit the table.

“She seems cool,” Christian said. The sound of his tray sliding against the table echoed over his voice as he picked it up.

“You don’t want to know her, trust me. She’s a psycho,” Mike said.

I gritted my teeth. Great. People think I belong in an insane asylum.

“She is not,” May’s voice defended. “She’s one of the nicest people I know.”

“What about me?” Adam asked.

“See you guys later,” Christian told them.

Having great hearing has its perks, but there were times I wished I were deaf.

Christian returned to my table and sat down. “Adam’s my cousin,” he said as he carefully unwrapped his chicken sandwich.

I swallowed the bite in my mouth. “Huh?”

“You asked me how I knew Adam. He’s my cousin on my mother’s side. We used to hang out a lot before his family moved here four years ago.”

“Oh.”

“What about you? Do you have family around?”

Yikes. Personal questions. Definitely not a direction I wanted to go. I shrugged. “Not sure. So May tells me you’re going to be the new quarterback?”

He shrugged. “I guess. I told coach I’d play whatever position, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Alex is pretty mad.”

“He’ll get over it. Why did you move here?” A fly buzzed near my face. I flicked my wrist at it.

“My dad’s work.”

“What does he do?” I swiped at the fly again when it landed on my arm.

“He buys businesses that are in trouble and then makes them profitable again. Something like that. I’m not real sure.”

“What about your mom?”

His eyes fell; the color changed to a melancholy blue, the shade of great sadness. I recognized it because I’d seen the same color in my own eyes.

“She died when I was three. Cancer. My dad never remarried.”

I stopped a french fry moving to my mouth. Suddenly I wasn’t hungry any more. “I’m sorry. That must’ve been hard.”

“At times.” He took a bite of his sandwich and chewed quietly. From across the room May’s high-pitched, chipmunk-like giggle broke the silence.

“That’s some laugh,” Christian said, smiling again. His eyes returned to normal, the sadness pushed back to wherever he kept it hidden. But sadness like that never leaves you.

I nodded. “It’s contagious.”

“So what about you? What does your dad do?”

The fly returned. I frowned as it completed an aerial swoop toward my half-eaten burger. Suddenly Christian’s hand shot through the air like a missile. He caught the fly between his thumb and forefinger.

I gasped. “That was fast!”

He wrapped the fly in a napkin with as much delicacy as he had unwrapped his chicken sandwich. “Not really. My dad is faster.”

“Do you two catch flies often?” I mused.

“When the fish aren’t biting. Whoever catches the most wins a prize.”

“Have you ever won?”

“Not once, but I’m getting close.”

“What’s the prize?”

“I’m lucky if it’s a bag of chips.”

“Your life sucks.”

He laughed, nodding. “I know, right?”

We continued talking. I could tell he was trying to get to know me, but little did he realize that I’d practically written the rules of the dodging-personal-questions game. Every time he asked one, I countered back, sending the conversation into a different direction.

I was really racking up the points, until he asked, again, “So where did you grow up? I don’t think you answered me.”

I reacted quickly. “Yes, I did. Remember? The sky?”

“Wait, what?” He looked totally confused. “You grew up in the sky?”

I laughed. “No, you were talking about your trip to Mexico over the summer and how a bad storm ruined it. Did you guys have to come home early?”

“Yeah, we got stuck at the airport.”

I leaned back in my seat and smiled as Christian told me all about his nightmare at the airport.

“You two seem to be having fun,” May said, approaching our table with Adam in tow. “You about done?” she asked me.

I picked up my water and took a long sip. “I’m done.”

From the door, Mike called, “When you’re done with freak-girl, I’ll be outside.”

Christian’s eyes moved to mine. “Sorry. He’s a jerk.”

“I don’t care.” I gathered our garbage with Christian’s help. My breath caught when his hand brushed mine.

“Still, he didn’t have to be rude. I’ll say something to him,” he said.

I stood up, holding the tray. “Please don’t. I really don’t care.” I moved to empty the garbage, but Christian took the tray from me.

“I’ll get that,” he said.

“Let’s go, Llona,” May called from the door. “I have to stop by the library before next period.”

“I’m coming.” I glanced one more time at Christian. With one clean jerk of his arm, all the garbage fell into the trash bin. He was different from the other students. But good different or bad different? And did I really want to find out?

Outside, we moved to our separate cars.

“See you around,” he called. He flashed me the kind of smile that probably made most girls swoon. For me, however, it did nothing but make my stomach flutter once. But that was more than I’d ever experienced with anyone else.

W
HEN THE DAY FINALLY ENDED
I
COULDN’T WAIT TO GET HOME
, but when I walked through the front door of our house, I almost turned back. Everything was a wreck—the same as it had been that morning. I marched back to Jake’s bedroom and cracked open the door. Jake was asleep, lying diagonal across the bed wearing the same clothes he’d had on yesterday and maybe even the day before.

White static from the television projected ghostly images into the cluttered room. Jake’s clothes carpeted the floor, and I wondered if he had anything clean to wear. I closed the door hard and walked back to my bedroom.

Jake’s spirit died the day we buried my dad. In a way, my dad, his older brother by ten years, had been like a father to him. From what I’d been told, their mother (and my grandmother, whom I’d never met) worked as a waitress in a Vegas casino. She worked hard but played hard too. She played men as often as she played slot machines. My dad and Jake didn’t share the same father, but you’d never know, as close as they were.

My father and mother married when they were both twenty, and they had me shortly after. I was five when Jake moved in with us on his fourteenth birthday. To me, Jake had always been an older brother, not an uncle.

When my mother died shortly after, it was Jake who was there for me. He practically raised me while my father was off trying to avenge her death. So when my dad died it only seemed right to choose Jake to be my guardian.