Locked (23 page)

The waiter turns so pale that I worry he might faint. “Y-yes, sir.”

“That was mean,” I say once he’s scuttled away.

“I am mean. I am honest, and in this society that happens to be constituted as mean.”

“You can be honest without being mean.” I take a sip of ice water, watching him over the rim of the glass. “You just kind of have to be selectively honest.”

“I have enough things to be exhausted by without being exhausted by that. Hold my hand.”

“What?”

“Ethan’s looking.”

Hesitantly, I lay my hand on the table, next to the candle. He takes it. I’ve never noticed how beautiful his hands are. Sculpted and strong. My hand has stubby fingers and bitten nails.

“I don’t understand it,” he says after a minute of me silently contemplating hands.

“What don’t you understand?” A loud couple takes the table beside us, and I have to raise my voice.

“He’s not gritting his teeth, he’s not glaring at me, he’s chatting easily. He just waved again.”

“I told you he’s not in love with me.”
      

“I don’t understand that either.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I don’t see how anyone could not be in love with you.”

I freeze, but he doesn’t seem to understand what he’s said. He’s still staring at Ethan’s table, a slight preoccupied frown on his face, as if he hasn’t just blown me to pieces.

“What did you say?” I whisper.

“Did I say something?”

“…Never mind.”

The food comes, huge steaming bowls of pasta. I’m suddenly starving. I dig in—it’s delicious. The wine is delicious too, light and sweet, totally unlike the boxed stuff Carol and I got drunk off once or twice. Sherlock picks at his dinner. He hasn’t looked at me once since we entered the restaurant. His eyes move from Ethan’s table, to the ceiling, to the window and back again.

I lay down my fork. “Okay, is there something on my face?”

“Just the usual,” he says to his wine glass. “Eyes, mouth, nose, confusion.”

“No, I mean it. Why aren’t you looking at me?”

“You look…nice.” He spins his wine glass between his fingers before taking a sip. Only he could do that without spilling it everywhere. “It’s…distracting.”

I smile.

“This is a good date, Sherlock.” I shake hot pepper on my pasta. “Even if you did steal it from Ethan. When you finally take an actual girl out, she’ll be delighted.”

Now he’s looking at me. “And you’re not an actual girl?”

“I’m an actual girl, but it’s a fake date.” I spear a shrimp.

“Doesn’t seem like much of a difference to me. Ethan and Melanie are on a real date and we’ve been doing the exact same things.”

“There’s a difference,” I say.

We eat in silence for another few minutes. I’m used to silence when it comes to Sherlock and his allergy to small talk. Silence never means that he’s uncomfortable or angry. It just means he’s thinking about something else. I’m used to him thinking about things that aren’t me. And besides, the silence is nice. It comes when we’re reading together, or when I’m drinking tea, listen to him play the violin. There’s a togetherness in it.

We finish before Ethan and Melanie. It’s so abrupt. He pays, we put on our coats and then the date is over. I wish it weren’t, no matter how fake it is.

Outside, it’s started to rain, heavy drops splattering across the driveway and noisily drumming on the roof. I’m about to step out from the shelter of the overhang and make for the car when Sherlock pulls me back.

“Wait, Irene. Not yet.”

I pull my hood on. “What are we waiting for?”

“For Ethan and Melanie to leave. I just want to make sure that—”

“Sherlock, I’m gonna go ahead and say that you were wrong about him.”

He scowls. It’s kind of adorable. I prod his chest. “So I guess you’re done saying you’re
never wrong
—”

“I acknowledged the possibility that this hypothesis wouldn’t be proven from the start. Since I didn’t assert that I was right, I’m not technically wrong.”

Why is it so fun to annoy him? I see why Mycroft does it. “Nah, I’m pretty sure that counts as being wrong.”

“I disagree.” He glowers at the rain and I’m surprised it doesn’t suck itself back up into the sky.

I chant, “Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong—” until he reaches up and pulls down the flap of the overhang, depositing a large amount of water on my head.

“Hey!” I splutter, liquid running down my face and hair.

He just smirks. It’s so infuriating that I shove him, catching him off-guard so that he stumbles out from the safety of the overhang into the rain. The downpour is so relentless that he’s soaked almost immediately.

“You do seem to like getting me wet.” He stays standing in the rain and starts ticking things off on his fingers. “You dump a glass of water on me at Daphne’s house. You convince me to jump in the ocean in October.”

“And there was that time you walked in on me in the shower, so I sprayed you with the shower head.” I step out into the rain after him. I’m so wet already that it doesn’t matter.

“There was that time,” he agrees, paying no attention to the fact that his suit is going to need dry-cleaning.

“Hey, Sherlock?”

We’re both standing in the rain now. Neither of us points out how stupid that is.

Maybe it’s the wine. Maybe I’m still in chick flick mode. Maybe it’s because he just looks so…so human, water dripping from the ends of his hair, his suit plastered to his chest. But I say it. “Thanks.”

“Thanks for getting you wet?” The corner of his mouth twitches up. If I wasn’t so determined to get this out, I’d accuse him of flirting.

“For…” I wince at how stupid it sounds in my head, but it’s too late now. “For being my friend.”

And then he’s got that look—the analyzing, calculating stare. It’s when I say the simplest things that he tries his hardest to figure me out. I wonder when he’ll realize that there’s nothing to deduce. It’s all face value.

      
“I can’t say you’re welcome because I can’t say that you’re particularly fortunate to have me as a friend,” he says.

“No, I am. You’ve done a lot for me, and I just wanted you to know that.” I fix my eyes on the ground, on the raindrops forming puddles under my feet, mixing with the gasoline and the dirt.

I hear him take a step forward and then I feel him, the closeness of him. Too close for the rain to make its way between us.

“Sherlock…”

His eyes have that scalding intensity that scares most people, but that I’ve learned to love. There’s so many things about him that I’ve learned to love. His frowns, his smiles, the notes he constantly writes to himself that he always refuses to show me, the way he says my name, just on its own, like I’m so interesting a topic I don’t need to be connected to anything—I’m getting lost in all these things when he cups my face with one hand, gently, and kisses me.

It’s different from the kiss in the gym. No one’s watching. He’s not doing it to protect me, or to manipulate someone, or to make sure anyone sees. He’s doing it because he wants to.

The rain and the taste of him mix together. Coldness and warmth. The taste of all I’ve wanted for days and days and days. The taste of salvation. Because that’s exactly what he is. He picked me up out of the darkest place and put me in the light.

That’s what it tastes like.

Light.

He breaks away and then, in the reflection of all the water around us, I see that Ethan has stepped outside.

“Jeez, guys,” he says, smiling. “You’re making me look bad.”

“Get a room,” Melanie concurs.

Then they walk past and disappear into the parking lot.

Sherlock swears. “I thought that would do it. Congratulations, Irene. I anticipate you rubbing it in for the next three days at a minimum.”

I’m motionless. I can’t even blink the rain from my eyes. My entire being is centered around the feeling on my lips.

“Irene? Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” I say, slowly becoming awake. No. Falling asleep again. I was awake when he was kissing me. Now I’m only awake to the reason why he did. “Let’s go home.”

Oh the way back, he seems to sense that something is wrong. He tries to chat, a momentous task for him, making comments about everything from the street lamps to what he observed about Ethan’s family history.

But I don’t make one remark back.

|||

At home, I try to do homework. I can’t concentrate. I try to watch
Parks and Recreation
. It’s not making me laugh. I open three different books and toss them on the floor in quick succession. Eventually I stick my head under my pillow, making a little cave with just enough room to breathe.

“It doesn’t matter because I don’t love him,” I whisper to myself, not caring how much I’m lying. “It doesn’t matter. I’m living with him. I get to see him every day. That’s enough.”

I roll on my back, pressing the pillow against my mouth. “He doesn’t need to love me. He doesn’t. He doesn’t.”

He’s my best friend. That’s more precious to me than anything. I shouldn’t be greedy. I shouldn’t want more than that. It doesn’t matter how starved that kiss made me for something real.

It’s nearly midnight and I should have gone to bed ages ago when he knocks on my door. He never knocks.

“Come in, what’s up?” I say. No matter what weird feelings are in me, what strange hungers, they don’t make me uncomfortable around him. Nothing can do that.

But he looks somewhat uncomfortable as he enters—Sherlock, who spits out every uncomfortable truth without flinching.

I sit up, closing the geometry textbook I hadn’t been reading. There’s something off about him. “Hey. You bored? Do you want to go for a walk?”

“No. Not bored.” He hangs near the door like he’s not sure where in the room he should be.

“If you came to try and argue with me about smoking in the house again, it’s not going to…”
      

I trail off. He’s come close to me. He sits next to me on the bed, making it creak slightly. Something is happening.

“May I conduct an experiment?” he asks softly.

“Depends. Does it involve the microwave—”

And then I stop talking, because he leans over and kisses me for the second time that night.

It’s not like either of the ones before, for real this time. It’s not dramatic. It’s gentle, so gentle I melt into its warmth. I could live in a thousand years inside that kiss. It feels like a gift.

And when he pulls back, his expression is absolutely unreadable.

“I understand now,” he says, mostly to himself.

And he leaves without looking back.

|||

That night, I have the same dream.

It’s the one I’ve had a million times before. Every time, he stands under that almost-dark blue sky, next to the sea, and asks me to trust him. Every time, I say yes. And every time…

I wake up sweating, tangled in my blankets. The darkness in my room is overwhelming. Suffocating. The green flash of the alarm clock is the only thing to break it. Three a.m. And the date—

The date.

How could I have forgotten the date?

I’ve been trying so hard to forget, that’s how. He’s the perfect distraction from all the dark things, so bright he breaks them into little shadowy pieces. But now I can’t forget. I can’t be alone in my room with the fact of what day it is.

I disentangle myself from my bed and get up, nearly tripping. I can’t go to Mom’s room. It’s true that his presence had begun to disintegrate the ice between us, but I still can’t go to her tonight, of all nights.

I go downstairs carefully, treading on the edge of each stair to stop them from creaking. Everything is silent. He’s asleep when I open the door to his room.
      

I’ve seen him asleep before—lying on the couch, or on my bed after a movie. But in his own bed, it’s different. More private. He sleeps as elegantly as he lives. I suddenly feel like crying, even though I don’t know why. I wouldn’t do this on any other night. Wouldn’t be so weak. But tonight—and with the kiss…

I fold myself into bed beside him, slipping under the covers like a ghost. His breath is sweet and warm. For a minute, I think he won’t wake up, but then I hear him say quietly,

“Irene.”

He never makes anything a question if he can avoid it. To him, it’s always an observation.

“Can I sleep here tonight?” I whisper. “I had a dream about you.”

“A bad dream, judging by the way you’re sweating.” His voice is heavy with sleep.

“Sorry.”

“I don’t mind.”

I almost ask what the kiss was about. What experiment he’d meant. I come so close. But lying there with him is the most peaceful thing, and I don’t want to disturb it.

He adjusts himself so that our foreheads are almost touching, so that all I can see are his eyes. “I died in the dream, clearly.”

“You always do,” I murmur. There’s no sound but the clock ticking and our hushed voices. “You ask me to trust you and then you die. And then you tell me I shouldn’t have trusted you.”

“Your dream me sounds almost as unpleasant as the real me.”

I smile.

“But I told you I wasn’t going to die.” And then he slides his arm over my back, drawing me close. “Only stupid people die.”

I almost tell him then. But I don’t. A calm as deep as the ocean, as warm as the bed we’re in, settles over me as I realizes that I
will
tell him, though—tomorrow. On the worst day. I’ll tell him something luminous and important on the worst day, and maybe the light of it will drive my demons away.

We fall asleep like that.

“You were always human.”

|||

(written on the back of a sheet of unfinished algebra homework)

Conducted an experiment.

Obtained a result.

Final mystery solved. (i.e. how I feel about her.)

I’ll tell her when the sun comes up.

|||

“Pass the milk, Sherlock.”

“You pass the milk.”

“I would, if I were anywhere
near
the milk.” Eventually I give up and get up, rounding the table, and grab the milk from beside his arm, giving him an irritated jostle. “And finish your toast.”