Thorns of Decision (Dusk Gate Chronicles) (3 page)

“You need to call Zander,” he said.

That
statement yanked her instantly back to reality.
“What? Now? Why?”

He didn’t flinch at her response. He sat, holding her phone in his hand, a patient look on his face.

“Quinn, he’s your boyfriend. He saw you running away from the library with me on Thursday evening, and then neither of us was at school on Friday. We are both going to be back there with him tomorrow. He needs to have some kind of explanation, or this could get really bad. You’ve made the decision to be a part of this huge secret, and now it’s time to take responsibility for it.”

“But … right now? What do I even say to him?”

“I don’t have any idea what you say to him. He’s not
my
boyfriend. But yes, right now. Waiting isn’t going to make it any easier, trust me.”

She nodded, took a deep breath, and then reached for the phone.

“You can go into another room, if you’d like privacy,” he offered.

She thought about it, but then shook her head. She knew he was right, that she needed to do this, needed to communicate with Zander, now. But it didn’t mean she actually had to
call
him. She flipped open the phone and scrolled to the text message menu.

William rolled his eyes.

“What?” she asked, a bit defensive.

“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s just … as long as I live I don’t think I’ll ever get my head around the way people in this world do everything they can to avoid actually interacting with one another.”

She glowered at him, but it didn’t change her mind. Swallowing hard, she began typing.

Hey, Zander,

Sorry I haven’t called or texted you back, it’s been a crazy weekend.

She glanced up at William. He’d picked up a notebook and was writing in it. “Are we still going with the story that Thomas is your cousin?” she asked.

He sighed. “I don’t know. That is what we told him when he saw Thomas at school, but now that this has gotten so much more complicated, I think we should maybe lie as little as possible. It’s going to be hard enough to keep the story straight.”

Quinn nodded. “I don’t like lying to him at all.”

He pulled off his wire-rimmed glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose between his fingers before he looked back up at her, his gray eyes meeting hers with an intensity that made her heart pound. “I know you don’t. Just … tell him whatever you need to tell him.”

*           *           *

William looked at his notes for organic chemistry, trying to write while Quinn sat across from him on the couch tapping keys on that ridiculous little device. He wasn’t sure why it was irritating him so much, to watch her struggle as she tried to figure out how she was going to explain this whole convoluted mess to her boyfriend. He’d known this was coming.

There was a strange, tight feeling across his chest as he surreptitiously glanced up at her. He wondered, briefly, if it was jealousy. Not that he had any right to be jealous. Zander had been pursuing Quinn since before she had ever gone to Eirentheos. He’d known she already had a boyfriend even when they’d kissed.

Besides, however he felt about Quinn – and he wasn’t at all sure just what his feelings toward her were –
this
was her world, not Eirentheos. And Zander was part of this world. It was better for her if she did fix things with him and then go on about the business of being happy here, living her life.

The feeling in his chest wouldn’t go away, though.

“What did you tell him?” he asked, when she had closed the phone.

She sighed and pulled her knees up to her chest, the way she usually did when she was starting to get stressed out. The irritation he’d been feeling at her for not just
dealing
with Zander suddenly vanished, and he had to fight an urge to cross the room to sit next to her and put his arm around her shoulder. They were in her world now, though, and she was texting her
boyfriend
. He wasn’t sure she’d respond well if he did that.

“I tried writing several different things, but in the end, I just typed, ‘I’m sorry’ and sent it.”

He opened his mouth to respond, but then thought better of it, and nodded, waiting. She’d say more when she was ready.

After a long moment, she looked up at him, her gray eyes filled with a swirl of emotion. “I am sorry, Will. I’ve made a mess of things with everyone. How can I do this? Lie to Zander? He doesn’t deserve that.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“But I can’t tell him the truth!”

“Not all of it, anyway.”

She blinked. “What do you mean?”

“Okay, so obviously you can’t tell him everything. But maybe we should think of what parts you could tell him that are true.”

At that instant, the small black phone sitting next to her buzzed. The tiny sound seemed strangely ominous. Quinn jumped away from it as though it might somehow bite her.

“Like what?”

“Well, your mom already told him that you and I were becoming friends – that part is true. And she told him that Nathaniel had a family emergency this weekend – also true. We can say that Thomas is actually my brother, and he got hurt, and I was upset. Then, I don’t know. Maybe just tell him I needed a friend and since you’re the only friend I have here, you were nice enough to be there for me.” Had he really just said that out loud? He watched carefully for her reaction. She glanced up at him, meeting his eyes for a fraction of a second – did her breath catch in her throat? And then she apparently decided not to address it.

 “And I didn’t call him because?”

He wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed. “Because you left your cell phone at work when you freaked out and took off. Again, the truth.”

She nodded and picked up the phone. William glanced down at his notes, but the words all seemed to run together, and nothing made any sense. He closed the notebook, tossed it on the coffee table, and waited.

She closed the phone again almost immediately.

“Did you change your mind about texting him?”

“I just told him that I wanted to talk to him later in person but that I’m not home right now.”

William nodded. “That’s probably better.”

“Yeah, I don’t know exactly what I’m going to say later, either, but I’ve been pretty awful to him lately. I think he deserves more than just a text message – that’s not an invitation for an ‘I-told-you-so, though.”

He drew an imaginary zipper across his lips, which made her smile. “Do you want to go home, so you can invite him over to have that conversation?”

Her eyes widened, and she shook her head. “No, I’m not quite ready yet. Besides, I really do need to get some homework done today.” Her cheeks turned red on the last sentence, which made no sense to him until she pulled a worn piece of paper from her backpack.

He let out a low whistle at the sight of the big red letter on the top of what looked to be some kind of essay. “Quinn! What happened?” He wasn’t certain what kind of grades she normally got, but from everything he knew about her, he hadn’t imagined ‘D’s.

“I don’t know. I’ve never gotten a grade like this before. I think I’ve just been distracted lately. I’m not used to switching back into school mode after being in your world … And now I’ll have a whole day of unexcused absences from my classes.”

“Okay then, you’re right. First you spend the afternoon here getting caught up on all of your homework, and then you go home and you deal with Zander and your mom. I doubt you’ll be able to concentrate on schoolwork once you’ve talked to them.”

*          *          *

William finished the last paragraph of an essay for his English class and glanced across the dining room table at Quinn. The way she was so absorbed in her World History textbook, her finger absently twirling a strand of hair as she read, made him smile.

It was nice, he realized, having her here, both enjoying the company as they worked, even if they were silent most of the time. Though he hadn’t meant for it to slip out, the little comment he’d made to her earlier, that she was his only friend here, was true.

For a moment, as he watched her, the sunshine falling on her auburn hair, giving it a warm, fiery glow, he almost wished he was just a normal boy from her world – one who might have talked to her before, maybe even done homework together at the library where they both spent so much time.

A boy who might have stood a real chance against Zander Cunningham.

Zander’s black truck was already parked by the curb when Quinn pulled into the driveway, even though she’d only texted him after she had gotten into her car outside William’s house.

Part of her had been relieved when she had pressed the button to open the door of the two-car garage, and it had still been empty – her mother wasn’t home yet. The other part of her had
not
been ready to have the conversation she needed to have with Zander. He was somehow out of his own truck and standing ready to open her door and help her out as soon as she pulled the key out of the ignition.

She had taken William’s advice, and told Zander the things they’d come up with together, sticking to as much of the truth as she could reasonably tell. It was obvious that Zander didn’t quite believe her, but he accepted her story remarkably easily – Quinn got the distinct feeling that he just wanted to believe her and to move on.

They sat together on the couch in Quinn’s living room now – a sort of uneasy truce between them as he helped her rework some of her trigonometry problems. She and William had worked on homework together for most of the afternoon, but he didn’t help her the way Zander liked to. They’d mostly studied side-by-side, engrossed in their own assignments. Trigonometry was Quinn’s most challenging subject, and she had relied a lot on Zander’s help over the last couple of months.

“Thanks,” she said, as she finished the last problem and then closed the book. “I really don’t know what I would do without you.”

“I don’t want to find out,” he answered. His tone was joking, but his smile didn’t reach all the way to his eyes.

She studied his expression for a long moment. “Zander, I really am sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”

He nodded. “I just don’t like feeling like you’re hiding things from me, Quinn.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” Did he hear the words she didn’t say –
couldn’t
say? Because as much as she hated hiding things from him, she would still do it. She couldn’t tell him everything. Right then, looking at Zander’s hurt expression –
Zander
who had been her ‘best fwiend’ since before she could walk – she almost wished that she had listened to William when he had first told her that she was going to hurt people – get hurt herself – if she continued to involve herself in his world.

Now it was too late. Even if she never went to Eirentheos again, things could never go back to the way they were before. Now she had already lied to Zander, she’d already seen her mom at the base of the bridge, clearly knowing something she couldn’t possibly know.

 And, aside from lying to Zander about where she’d disappeared to this weekend, she was hiding something from him, too. Something she
could
tell him, probably she even should, but she just couldn’t bring herself to do it.