Asylum (18 page)

            She
trailed off, leaving her mouth open in hopes that some better words might come
out.  She had never meant to say any of that.  It seemed that he was regarding
her curiously now, probably trying to put his finger on exactly what was wrong
with her. 

            “No,
no,” he said at last, “I’m always happy to have girls beating down the door to
ask me out.”  His smile was back, warm, genuine, and slightly teasing, the way
she liked.

            “Who
is it?” A feminine voice called from the room behind him.

            Chloe
sucked in her breath and took a step back.  Seth understand at once.  He threw
the door open to reveal a dark-haired girl sitting in his arm chair, holding a
game controller.

            “Chloe…this
is my little sister Rachel.  Rachel this is Chloe.”

            Rachel
must have hit the pause button, because she dropped the controller into her
lap, and looked expectantly at Chloe.  Chloe noticed that she had the same
large hazel eyes as Seth.  Her hair was darker, and longer even, though it had
a tangled and matted look to it, as though she hadn’t brushed it in awhile. 
Her cheekbones were higher and her chin sharper.  Her nose was slightly
upturned and gave her face a mischievous air.  Her smile, however, was the mirror
image of Seth’s…relaxed…confident even.  She returned Chloe’s gaze with the
same level of scrutiny.

            “You’re
right,” Rachel giggled to Seth, “She
is
cute!”

            Quick
as a flash, Seth grabbed a pair of dirty boxers off the floor and whipped them
at Rachel’s face.  Rachel screeched and pretended to gag.

            “She
thinks she’s funny,” he explained, “she’s not, but she thinks she is.  Come in,
come on in.”

            Chloe
took a timid step inside.  She rubbed the palms of her hands against her
shirt.  They were wet still.

            “You
don’t look so good.  You look worried,” Seth noticed.  “You sure you’re alright
there, kiddo?”

            Chloe
nodded but avoided making eye contact.  She knew that both Seth and Rachel were
watching her. 

            “I’m
a little…I’m feeling sick, just a little,” she excused herself.

            “Me
too,” Rachel smiled, “At least that’s what I told the school secretary this
morning when I called in pretending to be my mom.”

            Chloe
smiled politely, from the periphery of her vision she saw Seth glance between
her and Rachel a few times.

            “Rachel,
play your game.  Come on Clo, let’s take that walk,” he said.

            Rachel
rolled her eyes and picked up her game controller.  “Nice to meet you!” she
called after them.

            Seth
ambled leisurely down the hallway, nodding as they passed one or two other
students.  It didn’t seem like he was in a hurry to go anywhere in particular. 
Chloe clasped her hands behind her back and followed a step after him. 

            Once
outside the building, Seth stopped and turned to face her.

            “Alright,
here’s the thing.  If you want this to count as a date to partly make up for
ditching me this weekend, you’re going to have to at least hold hands with me,
and yes I did say
partly. 
I should be able to get a walk
and
dinner
or a movie out of your guilt, right?” 

            He
smiled and held his hand out for hers.  Chloe flinched.  Her hands were clammy
and probably still damp. Seth continued to hold his hand out.

            “You
going to leave me hanging?” he asked.

            Chloe
swiped her palm against her thigh and grabbed his hand, though she continued to
avoid eye contact.  Swinging their arms casually, Seth stepped off the sidewalk
and crossed the parking lot, headed for the woods on the other side.

            “Alright,
now how about you tell me what’s really the matter?” he asked.

            Chloe
looked at him, startled.  Tell him?  Sure!  Guess what, I’m a psychopath who
sort of believes that she’s being hounded by ghosts.  I see things that aren’t
there and watch invisible hands spell out secret messages.  The only thing I’m
missing is a tin foil hat and an unshakeable belief in aliens.  And now I’ve
got Sam playing on team crazy too, though I half suspect that it’s because I’m
the one who’s writing on walls, even though I can’t remember it.  Still want to
date me?

            Chloe
swallowed and squeezed his hand.

            “I
told you already,” she mumbled, “I was worried that you thought I wasn’t
interested in you and…and I didn’t want you to think that.”

            Seth
stepped over the curb and together they walked under the pines.  Last year’s
needles crunched underfoot.  The noise of campus life disappeared behind them.

            “Yeah,
I’m not buying that though,” Seth said, not looking at her.  “How about I tell
you what I think and then you can tell me I’m right?”

            “What
if you’re wrong?” Chloe asked.

            “Then
you’re going to have to actually open your mouth, talk to me and convince me
that I’m wrong.  It won’t be easy,” Seth cautioned.

            “Alright,”
she agreed.

            Seth
nodded.  Beneath the pines not a breath of wind stirred. It was entirely still.

            “When
I opened the door, you looked terrified.  You looked like something was chasing
you.  I was sure you were going to tell me that something else had happened. 
Something with your room, but you didn’t.  Now I know I should have called you
this weekend, I should have stopped by, but believe it or not, I was actually
busy.  I had practice and a couple of friends had a get together and my folks
stopped by…” Seth stopped for a minute and then shook his head.  “Look, the
truth is even with all that stuff I must have picked up the phone a dozen times
and started to dial your number and then hung up.  I just…I just didn’t want to
come on too strong, you know what I mean?”

            Chloe
nodded.

            “Sam
told me not to call you because it would look desperate,” she admitted.

            Seth
laughed.

            “Right,
and meanwhile the guys always talk about the “three day rule”.  Always leave a
girl hanging three day before you call.  But anyways, I’m getting off point. 
So where was I…okay, when I opened the door I thought you looked scared and I
got the feeling you were kind of bullshitting me, and I think maybe…maybe it’s
because I haven’t handled the whole situation very well.”

            “The
situation?” Chloe asked.

            “Yeah. 
I realize that you were really upset about the Ouija board and the light
burning out and, of course, your room getting all messed up, and I thought that
by trying to be rational and make you see it from my point of view, it would
help you.  But maybe all I did was make you feel like I wasn’t taking you
seriously.  I wasn’t there when any of it happened so it’s easy for me to say
’hey, don’t worry about it!’  So I think something else scared you now, and you
think that if you tell me about it, I’ll blow it off like I did before, or make
you feel like you’re being dumb.  So go ahead, tell me that I’m right,” he
smiled.

            Chloe
smirked and shook her head.  He didn’t miss much.  He read people very well,
maybe too well for it to work out in the long run.

            “You’re
right,” she conceded.

            “Of
course I am,” he agreed.  “So now I want to make you a deal.”

            “What
kind of deal?” she asked suspiciously.

            “I
want you to try and trust me enough to give me a real answer when I ask what’s
wrong, and for my part I’ll try to deserve that trust.”

            Chloe
was glad he wasn’t looking at her just then.  He was too nice, too good and too
healthy, it made her feel awful.

            “Clo?”
he asked quietly.

            “I
saw something,” she admitted.  “I was in my room and a bottle of white-out fell
off my desk and spilled on the floor, and I was nowhere near it.”

            She
paused and glanced up at him tentatively.  Trust him?  God, but she wanted to. 
He was waiting, listening, she took a deep breath.

            “I
thought I saw something in it.  I thought I saw the letters A and M,” she
admitted.

            Seth
nodded, but didn’t say anything.

            “See? 
Now you think I’m a nut, don’t you?” Chloe asked.

            “No,”
he answered, “I think it must have been very scary, especially after everything
else that’s happened.”

            “But
you don’t possibly believe that it’s real, do you?  You think I imagined it?”
Chloe pushed.

            “I
think something scared you and I don’t know what it was.  My mind tends to look
for rational explanations for everything, yes, but I can’t say it isn’t
something that can’t be explained, and no…I don’t think you’re crazy.”

            “Maybe
you just don’t know me well enough,” Chloe snorted.

            “Look,
Clo-- you have a tough time talking to people, because you‘re shy, right?  And
you‘re shy because you don‘t think people will like you…more specifically, that
I‘ll
like you.  But if you don‘t ever give anyone a chance-- I think
what I’m trying to say is, you don’t have to be perfect.  Maybe
you
don’t know yourself well enough.”

            Seth
paused near one of the large pine trees.  Dropping her hand he reached out and
stroked the scaly bark.

            “Did
you know that in California, there’s a pine tree that’s over 4,000 years old? 
It’s a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine, and it’s one of the oldest living
organisms in the world,” he said.  “Did you know that even for a red pine, like
this one, the average age expectancy is about 250 years?”

            “Okay,”
Chloe shrugged.

            “Do
you know what the average life expectancy is for us?” He turned to face her.

            “I
don’t know, maybe 75 years?” she said.

            “It’s
77 for me, 80 for you,” he smiled.  “You know what that means?”

            “Sure,
it means when we’re worm chow these trees will still be here.”

            Seth
laughed.  It almost sounded too loud under the noiseless pines.  High above,
where the branches started, some sort of bird cawed in response.

             
“I was going to say that in comparison we don’t have a lot of time.  I was
going to say that we don’t really have years to waste worrying what people
might think, or throwing away time by hiding ourselves when we really want to
be found.”

            “Wow,
you’re a deep one,” Chloe giggled.  “If that‘s your pick-up line it‘s way
better than ‘what‘s your major?’.”  Seth laughed again.

            “Well,
since you’ve already gone and ruined the uhhh…mood,” he accused, “I’m going to
keep the awkwardness going by letting you know that I was planning on kissing
you.”

            Chloe
grinned and looked at her feet.

            “Clo?”
he asked, placing his hand under her chin.

            “Just
do it.  Do it before I smash my head into a tree, or a bird poops on me, or
lightening strikes,” she grumbled, beaming red.

            Seth
looked up at the pine canopy.

            “I
don’t think it’s going to rain, but I do think I heard a bird a minute ago, you
think I should chance it?” he asked.

            She
didn’t have time to think up a smart answer.  As she looked up, he was already
moving in, his hand still under her chin.  She wasn’t even going to have time
to figure out what to do with her hands or whether she should-

            Thinking
stopped.  His lips were warm, gentle.  It was easy.

CHAPTER EIGHT

            On
one side of the elevator, Sam frowned and drummed her fingers impatiently
against the paneling.  The downpour outside had frizzed her normally short, straight
bob into an even shorter mass of curls.  Raindrops sparked in her hair.  She
shook her head violently and yanked her fingers through the wet mess a few
times.  She was angry.  It seemed to Chloe that every one of Sam’s quick,
silent movements shouted an accusation at her.  Even the way she stood, pressed
against the wall on the other side of the elevator, like she was trying to get
as far away from Chloe as she could.

            The
elevator dinged and the metal doors opened jerkily to display the dim, grey-walled
library basement.  Sam swept out of the elevator without a glance at Chloe and
stalked down a side hallway, putting as large a distance between the two of
them as possible.