The Beginning of Never (The Never Trilogy #1) (17 page)

I responded by spraying him with more crumbs.
"It's also impolite to delve into other people’s problems."

"I don't mind," Elisa said, clearly enjoying
our banter.

"Thank you," Nathan told her and she blushed.

I shoved him playfully, and got up. "I'm going to
my table," I announced and pretended to leave, but a sharp tug on my shirt
pulled me back until I was sitting on the bench again. I turned to hit him but
he leaned away.

Just then I noticed Elisa wringing her hands. She’d
suddenly become nervous. When I looked up to see Matthew walking towards our
table, I understood why.

He nodded to Nathan and me when he reached us, and then
turned to Elisa. He didn’t seem happy.

"We need to talk," he told her in a quiet
voice, and she nodded. We watched them leave and then Nathan nudged me to rise
because it was our table's turn to get food from the buffet counter. We got our
food quickly amidst curious stares and at one
point,
I
became so nervous that I started
wringing
my hands.
He looked down at me and asked what was wrong. I shook my head to indicate that
it was nothing, but he wasn't fooled.

"Relax," he said as I stared up at him, and I
smiled in response.

Everything went well after that, and soon we were
laughing about favorite meals, and stealing food off each other's plates. Some
strips of chicken breast still remained on his after he was done, but when I
reached forward to help him with it, he slapped my hand away.

"
Ow
!" I said and I
rubbed the sting, but when he looked away a few minutes later I quickly grabbed
the pieces off his plate and put them in my mouth. He turned back to see them
missing, and raised an eyebrow at me. I beamed like an excited toddler while he
just shook his head, and used a tissue to wipe the oil from the corners of my
mouth.

I tensed at the gesture and he noticed, but didn't
comment. He grabbed my drink in retaliation moments later and I started to
complain when I saw Elisa returning to us.

“Is everything sorted out?” I asked as she sat down,
but she just shook her head and then stood back up to get her food. She had
just returned and was about to sit down when a tall girl with short black hair
came up to us. She had a light dusting of freckles spread along the swell of
her cheeks.

“Hi,” she greeted
,
but
I didn’t see Nathan’s response. I was too busy watching what she’d do because I
suspected that this was Natalie; the senior who had been making Elisa serve her
table.

True enough she bent down to whisper in Elisa’s ear,
and Elisa went on to look even more depressed than she already was. She was
just about to get up when I quickly said. “Elisa
aren’t
you going to help Nathan?”

She looked confused. “What?”

“The stuff you said you were going to explain to him.
Have you changed your mind?”

“She’ll be back,” Natalie said, and I was about to
respond when Nathan stilled my arm from underneath the table.

“Natalie, do you mind if Elisa remains here for a
while? I really need her help,” he said.

I was surprised he knew Natalie’s name, but then I remembered
that they were both in the same year.

“On what?” she asked, sounding curious. But he just
smiled, and somehow that made her forget that he hadn’t answered her question.

“That’s fine,” she said, and she turned around to
leave. Nathan took his hand off mine.

“Thanks
Lennie
,” Elisa said
in a tired voice. “But I think you just made it worse.”

“Why haven’t you reported her?” I asked.

She shook her head. “It’ll just become worse. I’ll
become the number one target. I’m just hoping she gets tired soon because it’s
really beginning to frustrate me.”

“Why don’t you tell Matthew to talk to her?” Nathan
asked, but again her response was that she didn’t want to escalate the
situation.

“She’ll get tired,” she said, but I doubted it. Beverly
didn’t seem like she was going to get tired of me
either,
and I also didn’t want Nathan to know about it.

We were quiet for a few more minutes, until I happened
to glance back to see Natalie and Beverly getting up from their seats. They
started to head towards us.

“Argh,” I groaned. “What’s happening? Why can’t they
freaking leave us alone?”

Elisa raised her head to see them, and then looked at
me with widened eyes.

When they reached us, they ignored both Elisa and me
and acknowledged just Nathan. I turned my head away in disgust, but Nathan put
his hand on my knee to caution my reaction. I still refused to turn back to
them.

“We were wondering if we could join you.” Beverly said,
and as I opened my mouth to speak he tightened his hand on my knee. But that
didn’t stop me.

“We were just about to leave,” I said, my contempt for
her apparent in my tone.

Her face darkened, and she snapped at me. “Excuse me,
but I don’t think I was talking to you,”

Nathan stepped in. “We were actually about to leave,”
he said. “But you can join us of course.”

She blushed.

“You’re Beverly right?” he asked. She could barely
contain her flush while I just turned to look at him with amazement. Was he
joking? I wasn’t going to share a meal with the both of them. I started to say
that I was leaving but again, he pressed down on my knee, and whispered to me
to stay put.

Grudgingly, I agreed. Natalie took a seat across from
me- next to Elisa while Beverly came over to join Nathan and
I
.
She made Nathan move from the edge of the bench so that she could sit next to
him.

Just then, James arrived with his dinner plate and came
to sit beside me. I spoke to him and Elisa, trying my best to ignore Beverly
and Natalie as they spoke to Nathan. But eventually, I just wanted to get out
of there. After about ten minutes of giggles and shy smiles, Nathan finally
excused himself and asked Elisa and I if we were ready to leave. We nodded, but
had to wait a few more minutes for James to finish his meal.

As we left, we all kept silent until James and Nathan
reached the front of our house.

“See you guys later,” James said. I immediately started
to head into the building when Nathan took my hand, and pulled me aside.

“Why are you upset?” he asked.

I sighed. “I’m not upset, I’m fine.”

I knew he knew better, but since I wasn’t ready to
speak, he let me go.

“I think he did okay,” Elisa said as we climbed up the
stairs to our floor.

“Really, how?”

“If you hadn’t spoken, we’d have probably been able to
leave. But you did, and so to save us later he allowed them to stay for a
while.”

“I know that,” I muttered. “And he’s not the one I’m
mad at. I just wonder when being a senior automatically made you a tyrant?”

“Everyone catches the disease when they get there,” she
said.

“Well, let’s just hope they’ll leave us alone now.”

That evening, Beverly sent for
me. Olivia had come in with a smug smile on her face and informed me of the
call. I took my time in getting there, hoping that Beverly would already be
asleep and I’d be able to get away with it until the next day, but I wasn’t so
lucky. I walked into her room at about eleven-thirty to find her room filled
with her friends.

The two beds in the room had been joined together to
create one huge one in the middle, and on it they were all lying down and
chatting. The door was left open, so as soon as they noticed me standing at the
threshold, the room quieted down.

Beverly was the last to notice me because she wasn't
facing the door, but when she turned to see what had caused the quiet, a scowl
appeared on her face.

“Come in,” she said, and she introduced me to the
others – there were six of them on the bed.

“Guys, this is my
friend
Lenora," she said, and the others laughed like she had just issued an
insult. "I hope I'm not intruding in on your plans for the night."
she asked in a sickeningly sweet tone, but I refused to answer. She waited a
few seconds, and then yelled so loudly that some of her friends jumped.
"Answer me!"

But all I could do was shake my head, not trusting my
mouth to not dig a deeper grave for me than I was already in. With a disgusted
look, she turned away from me and started to speak to her friends. They
gossiped about everyone they knew, mimicked people and argued about silly
things that I’d have wished in a million years that I wasn’t present to hear.

An hour passed, and then
two,
and I just stood there watching them, until I was almost certain that she’d
forgotten about me. Just when I was about to ask for a bathroom break, she
turned towards me.

“My clothes are in the dryer,” she said. “5b.
Please
go get them
for me.”

Straightening, I moved away from the wall, and walked
out of the room. She had added a ‘
please’
so even if I wanted to report her now, her defense would be that that she had
asked me politely as a
‘friend’
, and
that I had willingly agreed. There were six witnesses to verify that. And if I
just decided to go to my room now like I was immensely tempted to, they could
come together and pound the hell out of me. Olivia was my roommate, so there
would be no witnesses to back up my tale later. And since I wasn’t particularly
close to anyone else, no one would be ready to put their necks on the line for
me.

Furious, I headed down to the basement and retrieved
her clothes from the dryer as she had instructed. When I returned to her room,
the next chore was to iron all of them- from her dress shirts to her sheets.
I’d never even
ironed
my own sheets
before, but there I was, at two a.m. in the morning, ironing those of someone
who I was now fully convinced I completely hated.

When I returned and she offered my services to two more
of her friends, I was past reacting. With a blank look on my face, I did all I
was asked and by past four, returned to my room and closed the door behind me.
I gazed at Olivia as she slept soundly, and for a few minutes I considered
pouring all my anger on her.

It was a quiet anger that I felt, I realized, when I
couldn’t even feel the blinding heat that usually accompanied my fury. Or maybe
it was because I was just too exhausted.

Dragging myself off to bed, I fell asleep thinking of
ways to make Olivia’s life a living hell.

*

I went through the next day
with
a soreness
behind my eyes that constantly
reminded me that I hadn’t gotten enough sleep. By lunchtime, Elisa joined me in
the courtyard and by the time I was done morosely narrating the tale to her,
she was more upset that I was.

"Oh my God!" she gasped. "Have you told
Nathan?"

"And what good is that going to bring?”

"I don't know, but he might be able to do
something about all this. He'll be freaking pissed."

"
He
is
the cause of it,” I said. “And like you said, getting him involved is just
going to make things worse, just like you didn’t want Matthew to get involved.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re probably right,” she said with a
sigh, and drew her soda cup towards her to take a sip.

"When I was about to leave, she warned me off
Nathan,” I said and her eyes widened.

“Did you tell her that he is your cousin?”

“No,” I replied, and carelessly dropped the white
chocolate chip cookie I had picked up from the dining hall earlier at breakfast.
“At that point I didn’t really give a damn about what she thought. I was too
exhausted.”

“Well, maybe you need to find a way to tell her then.”

“Maybe, but I’m sure she’s already heard. And even if
she hasn’t, I don’t think it’s going to make any difference. She’s stupid
enough to not care even if it was his mother in her way.”

“Well, I still think you should. It’s worth a shot,”
she insisted, but I didn’t think so. Telling her would feel too much like
selling out, and would just inflame the lie.

“Nathan’s coming,” she warned, and from my
groggy
position against the table, I straightened.

“He’ll notice something is wrong,” I said worriedly. “I
look too tired.”

“He won’t, and you don’t look too bad,” she said.

But when he came to sit by me, within seconds he asked
why I looked so exhausted.

“It’s nothing, I’m fine,” I said, and then added a
small smile when it was obvious that he didn’t believe me.

He let it go, and left almost immediately after that.

*

A week passed and I barely saw
Nathan.

Beverly on the other hand, made me take apart the
bookcase that I had color-coordinated. Again! This time around she wanted it
organized by topic. So my Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons had been unwillingly
dedicated to her. After that however, she left me alone and seemed to have
forgotten about me, or maybe she’d just gotten tired of making my life a living
hell.

Nathan’s distance however, posed another problem that I
didn’t want to have to deal with. He’d come for dinner about twice during the
week, but had left each time without even a glance in my direction. I’d racked
my brain for what could possibly have gone wrong, and thought at first that it
could be related to his dad. But when he’d laughed with James during one of his
rare appearances in the dining hall, I’d concluded that he was okay. I had
previously only seen him when he wanted me to, so the fact that he had ignored
me for the entire week brought up a lot to think about.

The result of my Math test came in the next Monday, and
although I was happy that I’d gotten a B+, it was short-lived because once
again, he was nowhere to be found. I wanted to share it with him but I
couldn’t, because I had no idea where he was. When Elisa came over to ask me to
lunch with her, I shared my concern.

We were waiting in line in the cafeteria and she was
listening to me talk about his absence when she suddenly stopped me and said,
"There's Nathan."

I followed her gaze to see him sitting at one of the
tables, with a coffee cup in front of him. But he wasn't alone. I tried to see
who the girl was but Elisa saved me the trouble.

"What's he doing with Marilyn?" she asked. I
kept my eyes on them for a few more seconds, and then forced myself to turn
away.

"Who is she?" I asked, trying to keep the
edge out of my voice.

Elisa looked surprised. “She’s the head girl, and she’s
in our
house
. How don’t you know
this?”

I shrugged. I didn’t care.

“Do you want to go over?” she asked.

“Of course not!”

A few seconds passed.

“Do you think I should?”

“Well, I don’t know,” she said. “You
are
pretty close to him, aren’t you?
Cousins
even.”

The way she said “cousins” sounded like she was mocking
me, but I ignored it to glance back at them again. There was no doubt that I
wanted to go over just so I could confirm that we were okay, but I was scared
of what I would see in his reaction.

What if we
actually weren’t okay?
I found myself thinking.
And that somehow in the last week, he had managed to outgrow me.

Almost immediately, I cringed at how pathetic the thought
was because even if he had, so what? It’d be easy for me to do the same. So
with my heart in my throat, I threw all caution to the wind and headed over.

Nathan didn't see me, or at least he pretended not to
until I reached him and he was forced to look up. I needed his acknowledgment
before I could turn to the girl, but when he raised his eyes to mine and I saw
nothing, I knew instantly that
me
coming over had been
a terrible decision. It was official; I had been tossed into the crowd of
unwanted females.

"Hey," he said in his usual cool voice, but
it was devoid of the affection that I had grown accustomed to. The difference
was dazing, and it felt like I was talking to a stranger.

"Hi," I responded, the word coming out
sounding like a question. I wasn't sure what I was waiting for, but his
narrowed gaze eventually forced me to explain myself. I said the first thing
that came to mind, "My test results came back."

He nodded. "Okay."

"I got a B." I added, feeling more stupid as
the seconds passed, but I still managed a smile. He on the other hand just
stared at me, until I was forced to turn and acknowledge the other girl.

"Hi," she greeted, with what looked like a
genuine smile, but I couldn't even bring myself to respond.

I nodded at her and then with a frown, I looked back at
him. "I’ll see you around,” I told him, and then I walked away without
even waiting for a reply. By then, I didn’t even expect one.

“How was it?” Elisa asked as I met up with her, two
steaming cups of tea, and a brown paper bag between her teeth. Shrugging, I
thanked her as I took the bag from her, and walked out of the cafeteria. She
followed closely behind.

*

Elisa came over to my room just
before dinner and by
then,
I was so strung out from
turning over the cafeteria incident continuously in my mind that I needed to
talk to someone before I completely lost it. I left out the details and just
glossed over my concern at his distance.

She listened, and afterwards asked if I was bothered
that he had been talking to someone else instead of me. I wasn't about to admit
what I knew was a very big part of the truth, so I just brushed her suggestion
away and reminded her that we were cousins, so I couldn't be jealous of that.
She gave me a
leery
look that showed she didn't buy
the whole relation thing anymore, but I ignored it.

She asked me if I didn't think I was overreacting, and
although I denied it immediately, I went back to consider it. I had to believe
that I was because there was no other reasonable explanation for my distress.

Maybe Marilyn was a classmate of his and they just
happened to meet at the table. Maybe he had a lot on his mind so he was too
distracted to pay me any mind. But that was part of the problem, because I
would never have been too distracted to pay him the attention I believed he
deserved from me.

I cared too much and it was a problem, but despite
this, I went early to dinner that evening hoping to catch him. He was at his
usual table with James and to an extent that relieved me, because at least he
wasn’t missing meals like he had been the previous week. I snuck peeks at him
throughout the entire dinner hoping he would turn to seek me out, but when I
never caught his stare, I completely lost my appetite.

It was only when Elisa kicked me beneath the table and
asked me if I had a death wish, that I realized that I had been outright
staring at him, my emotions completely bared on my face. I straightened and
continued moving my food around.

“Do you think I should go over to say hi?” I asked
Elisa.

She looked up from her plate.

“No, I don’t think so,” she said, almost sarcastically.

“But why?”
I argued. “Last
week I was able to do that.”

“That was last week, and you know why.” Then she looked
to his table. “It doesn’t even matter now because he’s leaving.”

“What?”

She was right, and after he left, I turned back to her.

“He didn’t even look for me,” I said. She didn’t know
how to respond.

*

The week passed much too slowly
and by the end of it, I felt like a mess. Thrice more I had seen him in the
dining hall – once more with Marilyn and the rest with James. So when I had
woken up on Saturday with the urge to cry, I had finally realized that my
infatuation had gone too far. My resolve was to completely toss him out of my
mind, so I started working at it.

When lunch time came on Monday, instead of going out to
the courtyard like I would have if I’d expected to see him, I went up to the
library to continue the reading rituals in my secluded corner- a routine that
I’d almost forsaken. Elisa had said she’d stop by before lunch ended so when I
felt someone approaching, I expected to see her. But instead, I looked up to
see Nathan walking towards me.

I was transfixed in surprise as I watched him approach,
and could do nothing but stare until he came to stand right in front of my table.
My heart was hammering away in my chest.

“Hey,” he greeted, but I was too stunned to respond. I
eventually took my eyes away from him, and calmly returned to my novel.

I could no longer see the words, but it didn’t matter. I
kept my eyes on the pages because at that moment, I had nothing to say, and it
was surprising. The previous week, I could have written a book on the insults
I’d have loved to throw at him. Seeing him now, I was speechless and nervous.
My hands were beginning to tremble.