Put Me Back Together (2 page)

Tipping his head toward me, he said in a quiet voice, “You’re late, you know.”

Suddenly all four of them were looking at me, waiting for a reply. “Well, there was ice cream,” I blurted, flustered, “and then there was the cat, and…”

He put his arm around my shoulders and I had to resist the urge to take a big step away from him, reminding myself that he was the nice one. He was helping me out. Warmth flowed through his coat and into my side. I pressed my lips together to stifle a nervous giggle, which came out as a squawky gurgle instead. Basically, I sounded like a drowning seagull. I couldn’t remember the last time anyone besides Emily had been this close to me.

“Did he get out again?” he said, concern creasing his forehead.

Then he turned to his moronic disciples. “Thanks for helping her find him, guys,” he said. “She loves that kitty. She’d have been heartbroken if he’d been hit by a car or drenched in beer by some heartless thug.”

They all nodded in unison. “No problem, glad to help,” Three said as he began to back away.

“I love cattens,” said One.

“Don’t forget Lori’s party tomorrow. Taylor will be there. See you there, man,” Two said as he ambled after the others.

Mr. Calm and Collected waved to them as they walked away, waiting until they were out of earshot to mutter, “Not likely.”

His arm was still around my shoulder, though he hardly seemed aware of it, unlike me, who felt every inch of him burning into my side like a fiery brand. I said, “Thanks. You didn’t have to do that.”

He let go of my shoulder (finally!) but didn’t step away from me. Instead he gazed down at me, a smile slipping over his lips. I was practically shaking now, the proximity of this strange guy and all his heat getting the better of me. For a second I thought he was going to reach up and touch my cheek, but instead his fingers snagged on the zipper of my jacket.

“How’s he doing?” he said. “My cat back home would flip out if he was trapped outside on a night like this.”

Painfully conscious of how close his head was to mine and kind of irritated at the way he continued to invade my personal space, I looked down at the little orange head emerging from the neck of my jacket. “I think he’s…”

When he reached forward to smooth the fur on the little cat’s head, the tip of his finger dragged lightly across my neck. The feeling was electric and alarmed me so much that I uncrossed my arms and stepped away from him. The cat tumbled down the inside of my jacket and landed at our feet before scampering off again.

We both swore and ran after him, a chase that lasted a lot longer than the first one—the cat seemed to have smartened up—and when he was finally safe inside Mr. Calm and Collected’s jacket, we were both out of breath.

“I have to hand it to him,” he said. “He’s a determined little sucker. We’d better get him home.”

I adjusted the glasses on my face, raising my eyebrows at him. “You realize that isn’t actually my cat, right?”

“Well, he doesn’t have a collar, and he’s so skinny. I doubt he’s eaten for a while. Seems like he’s your cat now.” He grinned at me like this was my lucky day.

“I don’t want a cat,” I said, shaking my head forcefully. “Why don’t you take him?”

“I have two roommates who are an awful lot like
that
.” He gestured after the three idiots. “What’s the matter, Hero? You don’t need a furry friend?”

“No, I don’t need friends. I…no, I don’t need anything.” I glared at the ground. Had I actually just said that out loud?

He cocked his head and squinted at me, still grinning slightly. God, did this guy ever stop smiling? It was making me hostile.

“I recognize you from somewhere,” he said.

“Yeah, I recognize you, too,” I said distractedly, freely using my peripheral vision to scout out my escape route. “Aren’t you the…you know…goalie…quarterback…captain person?”

He burst out laughing. “What?” he said. “What sport do you think I play?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “The one with the ball?” Sports weren’t something I made any kind of an effort to keep track of. They lived in a dusty part of my brain along with high school science, French cooking, and other things I never thought about.

Still chuckling, he said, “I guess that rules out hockey.”

“I guess,” I said, looking pointedly out at the street now. “So I should probably go.”

“Great, where to?” he said, falling into step beside me.

“What?” I said sharply.

He looked at me with an expression of mock alarm, which dissolved quickly into a smile.

Again with the smile.

“No,” I corrected him. “I’m going home, and you should go to wherever it is you were going.”

“I’ve got your cat in my shirt, Hero,” he said. “Wherever you go, I go.”

Inside his
shirt
? For some reason I found myself blushing crimson, which really pissed me off.

“Why do you keep calling me that?” I snapped as we made our way up the street. He walked incredibly slowly, like he didn’t have a care in the world. People who walked like that in this kind of weather made no sense to me.
“You saved this cat from death-by-beer, didn’t you?” he said. “Sounds pretty heroic to me.”

“Well, it wasn’t,” I said. “Besides, you helped. You saved him, too.”

“So what are you saying, I’m your hero?” He gave me a warm look, showing off his dimples again.

Oh God, the dimples.

“I’m saying walk faster,” I said, powering ahead. “What the hell is wrong with you? It’s minus twenty-five out here.”

“Whatever you say,” he said from behind me.

The wind began to blow and I pulled my hood back up around my head, but I still heard him add, “Hero.”

At my apartment door I fiddled frantically with the lock, which had decided to choose this moment to be temperamental. Somehow I’d managed to
not
lose Mr. Calm and Collected on the street, at the door to my building, or on the stairs up to my floor. He was standing next to me right now, still holding the cat inside his clothes—though this was something I’d decided not to think about ever again—and was leaning down to examine my lock in the way of friendly, helpful neighbours. I was now using nearly all of my energy to try to think of a way to get rid of him and the cat.

Finally, the lock clicked open and I backed into my apartment, holding the door tight to my shoulder so he couldn’t see inside.

“Thanks for walking me,” I said with a lot of head nodding. “You didn’t have to. But it was really nice of you, so thanks. Thanks. Thank you.”

I’d never thanked someone so many times in my life. It made me feel tired. I liked it better when no one was around to help me, so there was no one to thank but myself.

“I think he’s asleep,” he whispered to me. I found myself staring at his lips, which were nicely full and pink and soft looking.

Then—and I blinked a lot while this was happening to be sure I wasn’t seeing things—he pulled open his jacket and started unbuttoning his shirt. I glimpsed tanned skin and a smooth chest before I looked down, painfully embarrassed. When I looked up again he was holding out a bundle of fur. I gathered the animal into my arms and leaned against the doorframe. My cheeks were throbbing with heat now, which I was sure he could see, and I simply didn’t know where to look. I frowned at the hardwood floor.

“I’m Lucas, by the way,” he said. When I glanced up I saw that he was leaning down to peer into my downturned face, his expression curious. At least he wasn’t laughing at me.

“Katie,” I mumbled.

“Thanks for rescuing me, Katie,” he said. “I’ll never forget it.” He began walking down the hall, back toward the stairs.

“Rescuing you?” I said. “I didn’t—”

“What was that?” he said, cupping his hand around his ear. “I can’t hear you, Hero.”

“Lucas,” I called, leaning out the door. He stopped at the top of the stairs and looked back at me.

I said, “Don’t call me Hero.” And then I shut the door.

2

“So he gave the cat to you?” Emily said, her voice muffled because her face was pressed into my pillow.

“Yes. No. It was a weird night,” I said. “It wasn’t his cat.”

I set the new litter box on the ground and held up the kitty litter bag. “How much am I supposed to put in?” I said. “Do I fill it up all the way?”

I pushed the curtains farther open so I could read the instructions on the bag. Emily moaned and pulled the pillow over her head.

“No light!” she whined pitifully.

I gave the back of her head a look and yanked the curtains closed a little more.

“I told you to drink two glasses of water before bed.”

My sister rolled over grouchily, holding a hand over her eyes. “Sorry,
Mom
,” she said, “but since
I
don’t have my own apartment like
some
people,
I
have to
share
a fridge with Manic Melanie, who drinks all the bottled water like she’s filling her camel humps.
I
don’t have the
luxury
of my own full-sized refrigerator.”

Rolling my eyes, I pulled the cat bowls and brush out of my shopping bag. “You could have just gone to the bathroom. Doesn’t it have a sink? Or does the school deprive you of the luxury of hand washing, too?”

“It was
so far
away!” Emily cried. “Besides, I didn’t feel that bad once I was lying down. The room wasn’t even really spinning. This hangover is bullshit.”

I shook my head. We had this same conversation almost every weekend. The only difference was that this was a Monday morning and my dear sister had a European history test in about forty minutes.

“I offered to get a bigger apartment so we could be roommates,” I said. “And what did you say?”

She pressed the pillow into her face again. “I’m living in Res. Res is where all the fun happens.”

“Right!” I said brightly. “And aren’t we having so much fun right now?”

Emily moaned again. “I hate you.”

When my twin sister had chosen to go to the same university as me, a whopping four thousand kilometers from home, I’d fully expected that we would room together. But Emily wanted to have the full university experience: living in residence on campus, getting a meal plan, Frosh Week, shared bathrooms, and no privacy—all things that horrified me. Just imagining all those people in such close quarters made me break out in hives. I preferred my little apartment on a quiet street close to the Dairy Queen and just a five-minute walk from campus. It had seemed like a good idea to get some separation at first, but the truth was I missed my sister a lot, even if I saw her every day. She had this whole new life filled with all these new people I could barely keep track of. She was discovering the world and putting herself out there. She was opening up to new things, while I, as usual, remained closed up tight, as I had been for the past six years. She’d come all the way here with me; she hadn’t left me behind. But it was hard for me not to think of it that way sometimes, and not to envy everything about her life, even her hangovers.

My sister was living her life while I was doing my best to avoid mine.

“So back to the cat,” Emily said, “which I still don’t believe really exists—”

“I told you, he’s under the couch somewhere,” I said, although to be honest I had no idea where he was. Last night he’d leaped out of my arms and wiggled his way under the couch, and I hadn’t seen him since. I prayed he hadn’t clawed anything or thrown up anywhere. Already the idea of what he would deposit in the litter box was grossing me out.

“Why did this guy give him to you, again?”

“His name is Lucas,” I said. I ripped open the bag of cat food and poured some into the bowl by my bedside table.

Suddenly, Em sat upright in bed and stared at me. “Lucas who?” she said. “What’s his last name?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “He didn’t tell me.”

“Was he tall, dark brown hair, golden eyes, rippling muscles?” Her eyes were glued to my face. It reminded me of the time in fifth grade when I’d recounted to her how I’d stolen a pair of Christian Lewis’s underwear from his bedroom during Carrie Lewis’s sleepover birthday party. That was before
it
happened, back when I was adventurous, back when I chose dare instead of truth every time. Back when my sister had been known as “the quiet twin.”