CinderEli (3 page)

I opened it for him, using it to hold myself
up as he stepped over the threshold. “Thanks for coming over.” I
prayed I didn’t sound as deflated as I felt.

Roman turned to look back at me, illuminated
by the porch lights framing my front door, he looked almost
angelic. “It was fun. Maybe we could uh… study again sometime.” Was
he blushing when he said that?

“I’d like that.” Headlights cut through the
wrought iron bars at the end of the drive, and I reached behind the
door for the button to open the gate. “Well, I guess I’ll see you
at school on Monday, maybe.” I mentally berated myself as soon as
the words were out of my mouth. Our school was on the block
schedule, which meant I wouldn’t have a class with Roman until
Chemistry on Tuesday. Did I sound desperate hoping to see him on
Monday?

He nodded and turned to jog down the steps
toward his father’s car. I watched as they pulled away, and shut
the gate as soon as they were out on the street. Then I shut the
front door and leaned back against it. What was it about Roman that
had me acting like a prepubescent girl with her first crush? He
definitely wasn’t the type of guy I usually went for. So, why
couldn’t I get him out of my head?

Four

Roman

Monday morning arrived on
the heels of a
rainy, dreary weekend. The world was overcast and gray, with a
rain-slicked sheen covering every surface, but somehow it all
seemed bright and cheerful. I’d floated through the weekend lighter
than air, and all because of a kiss I’m not even sure would have
taken place had the pizza guy not interrupted. But Katie had
certainly seemed interested.

I thought about finding Katie and trying to
talk to her about it when I got to school. All weekend, I’d fought
the urge to call her—I didn’t want to seem too eager, too
interested. But when I entered the English wing, the warning bell
rang, and I was forced to give up any hope of seeing her before
first period.

By the time lunch rolled around, I still
hadn’t seen Katie. We must not have had any classes near each
other. We probably didn’t even have the same lunch period. I
resigned myself to the fact that I probably wasn’t going to see her
today and headed for the cafeteria. Navigating the throngs of
students loitering by lockers and congregating mid-hallway took
longer than I expected and by the time I made it out of C-wing, I
was ready for fresh air.

“Roman!”

I would recognize that voice anywhere. Katie
was calling to me from somewhere near the quad. I scanned the
concrete picnic tables for her and finally caught sight of her. She
was alone at a table at the far end, half-standing and waving one
arm in a huge arc over her head. When our gazes connected, she
waved me over to her, and I changed course immediately.

“Hey, what’s up?” I tried to play it cool
once I got over to her.

She sat back down and tucked a stray strand
of blonde hair behind her ear. “How was your weekend?” She sounded
almost nervous. Was it possible that she might be just as on edge
around me as I was around her?

“It was good. I didn’t do a whole lot.” I
mentally kicked myself. Great, way to make myself sound unpopular
by admitting I’d done nothing.

Katie smiled. “Hey, I don’t know if you’ve
heard, but my birthday is Sunday.”

Why was she telling me this? “Happy early
birthday.”

“Thanks,” she shrugged, “but, I wanted to let
you know… I’m uh… having a party. You probably think it’s dumb, I
know. But my parents are really into birthdays. It’s gonna be a
masquerade… er… a costume party.”

Understanding dawned. She was telling me she
couldn’t study this weekend. “Oh, okay. I gotcha. We can study
another day. That’s cool.”

Her eyes widened, and she sputtered for a
moment. “No!” Her tone was louder than before, but she was quick to
quiet again. “No, what I meant was… well… do you want to come?”

She was inviting me to her party? I opened my
mouth to answer, but before I could, something hard and cold
smacked me in the back of the head.

“What’s up, dweeb?” Great. Brad was here. He
walked around to straddle the bench Katie was on, and two more
meatheads from the wrestling team claimed the bench on the opposite
side of the table.

I rubbed the back of my head as Brad tossed a
water bottle from hand to hand. At least he hadn’t hit me with
anything that would make a mess.

“You guys friends?” Katie shifted
uncomfortably.

I waited for Brad to answer—I wanted to hear
his response.

“This loser? Nah, the only reason I know him
is ‘cause he’s related to me. Unfortunately, he didn’t inherit the
coolness gene, eh dweeb?” Brad’s wrestling buddies laughed.

I wished I had an answer to that, some smart
quip that would put Brad in his place, but I had nothing. So, I
said nothing.

Katie’s perfect lips parted on a silent,
“Oh.”

“I better get going,” I told Katie, choosing
to ignore Brad and his friends.

“Yeah, don’t you have something nerdy to do?”
The one closest to me heckled, and meathead number two guffawed and
slapped his friend on the back.

“Guys, stop,” Katie warned, but her voice was
soft and tinged with something I didn’t quite recognize, disgust
maybe? She turned to me, looked like she wanted to say something,
but I couldn’t bear to hear whatever it was she was about to
say.

“Anyway, see ya around.” I turned on my heel
and headed for the cafeteria.

****

The next few days dragged by. No matter how hard I
tried to concentrate on other things, more important things like
schoolwork, I just couldn’t shake the memory of that confrontation
with Brad. It replayed in my mind over and over. I stayed home
“sick” from school on Tuesday so I didn’t have to face Katie, and
by Thursday, I’d built up Katie’s non-reaction in my mind to such
huge proportions I considered skipping school. But that wasn’t my
style. Besides, I couldn’t skip Chemistry for the rest of the
semester. I needed the A to clench that scholarship to State.

So, I dragged myself out of bed that morning,
and forced myself through my morning routine. If I were honest with
myself, I would have admitted I might have checked my reflection a
few extra times, spent a few extra minutes choosing my clothes,
worried over my appearance a little longer than most mornings. But
I told myself I was just being as conscientious as every other
day.

Katie rolled into first period just seconds
before the bell rang. Mr. Carlson raised an eyebrow in her
direction, but didn’t comment. She slipped behind my chair, moving
much more gracefully today than last week, and settled in her seat
next to the wall. “Hey,” she whispered from behind the cover of
hair hanging in front of her face as she bent to ruffle through her
backpack on the floor.

I nodded back at her. Mr. Carlson took to the
front of the room and cleared his throat to get everyone’s
attention. “Good morning. I trust everyone has read chapter three,
on scientific measurement, and is excited to show me what you’ve
learned.”

A couple students groaned, and Katie frowned.
I mentally patted myself on the back for reading ahead so I wasn’t
too far behind the class even though I’d missed the lesson on
Tuesday.

Mr. Carlson passed a stack of papers to the
student closest to him. “Take a packet and pass them on. Get with
your partners and answer the questions on the worksheet. When you
get to the last page, you can pick a lab station at the back,” He
pointed to the counter running the length of the back wall, and I
turned to follow his gaze. He’d set up six stations with beakers
and other tools. “And do the activity. I recommend some of you
start with the activity, then work on the seatwork portion, so
everyone’s not fighting for a station at once.” Then he returned to
his desk and the computer there.

When the last two packets landed on the desk
in front of me, Katie visibly paled. “Shoot.”

“You didn’t read chapter three?”

She shook her head. A few pairs of students
meandered by us to the back of the room.

“It’s okay. Scientific measurement isn’t as
hard as it sounds. I can walk you through it. Do you want to do the
lab first or the worksheet?”

She looked at the lab stations with something
like panic in her expression. “Uh, let’s do the worksheet first.”
Then, she scooted her chair closer to mine and leaned in to read
the worksheet.

It took everything I had to stay focused on
the assignment with Katie so close. Every time I took a deep
breath, my shoulder brushed hers, reminding me of sitting next to
her in her parents’ media room, touching by not touching. My
stomach was a pretzel, twisted up with nervous energy. With each
new question on the paper, I had to focus on the individual words
and digest the question with purpose, trying to ignore her
proximity and the way her hair smelled of apples. We were probably
getting every question wrong, but I couldn’t have answered them any
better. I was just lucky to be able to form coherent sentences
right then.

After Katie had to look up the fourth
straight answer in the book because I couldn’t answer it, I dropped
my pen onto the table and pushed my chair back from the table. I
tilted my head back, looking up at the ceiling tiles, and let my
arms fall to my sides on a heavy sigh. Rotating my shoulders to try
to relieve some of the tension, I closed my eyes and silently
willed myself to just disappear. What was wrong with me? I was
acting like I’d never been near a girl in my entire life. How was
Katie able to do this to me?

Katie’s chair scraped the floor and the sound
of clothing rustling followed, but I didn’t open my eyes to see
where she was going. I concentrated on my breathing, trying to tamp
down the flood of nerves rising inside me, and calm my pulse back
to a normal rhythm. It was almost working.

Until cold fingers pressed against my neck
from behind. The touch of Katie’s hands on my skin startled me more
than the chill of it, and I flinched the slightest bit.

“You’re so tense.” Her voice was like velvet
against my ear, the softest, sweetest whisper as she gently
massaged my shoulders. “Is everything okay?”

Her touch sent ripple after ripple of
awareness down my spine, and gooseflesh broke out across my neck
and arms. Hopefully, she wouldn’t notice the effect her touch had
on me. I was torn between scrambling to escape and shifting closer
to her. I settled for staying right where I was and hoping my voice
didn’t betray my turmoil when I spoke. “I’m fine.”

Her hands continued to move across my
shoulders and upper back, never hesitating, even as she said, “I
don’t believe you.”

I shrugged.

“Is this about Brad and his friends?”

Angry heat crept up my neck and into my
cheeks. “No.” It wasn’t a lie. I hadn’t even been thinking about
Brad until she brought him up. But I couldn’t tell her the truth. I
would be mortified if she found out that the reason I couldn’t
concentrate, the reason I was sucking at life just then was because
all I could think about was her, what it would feel like to kiss
her, to touch her. And her hands on me weren’t helping me rein in
my wayward thoughts. I had to get out of here.

I was out of the chair and halfway to Mr.
Carlson before I’d even consciously made the decision to ask him
for a pass, but when I got to his desk, the words were easy to come
by. “May I use the bathroom?”

Mr. Carlson looked up from the stack of
papers he was grading and raised his eyebrows at me, but in the
end, he took out his passes and filled the top one out, then tore
it from the book with an audible rip. “Don’t be long.” Then he went
back to grading.

I shot a glance at the clock above the
whiteboard behind him. There were still twenty-five minutes left
before class got out. And I had no intention of returning before
the bell rang. I’d come back and get my stuff after I was sure
Katie was gone.

Five

Katie

My bedroom door creaked open,
but I ignored it
and brushed my mascara wand across my eyelashes one more time
before tucking it back in the tube.

“Oh-em-gee, Katie, you look amazing! Like a
real faerie princess,” Maya came to my side at the vanity mirror
and gingerly fingered the gauzy shimmer lace layered over my silk
bodice. Her aquamarine mermaid costume, complete with matching
demi-mask, was equally as shimmery and far more revealing than my
own silver and lace, floor-length gown. The sea-inspired blue color
was a perfect complement to her olive skin tone and waist-length,
auburn curls. Her look was exotic where mine was fair, and our
personalities were just as polar as our looks.

Maya had been my closest friend since we were
babies, and I was thrilled to have her at my party, and helping me
to get ready for it, too. But, even after all these years, it still
drove me a little nuts when she started a conversation with
oh-em-gee.

“Thanks. You look great, too.” I stood up
from the vanity and made for my walk-in closet to grab my shoes.
The clear heels coated with a light dusting of silver glitter had
been a last minute, but much needed addition to my costume. I
claimed them from the top shelf of my shoe rack and carefully
slipped my feet into them. “Ready?” I asked Maya as I emerged from
my closet.

“Ready,” she agreed and linked her arm in
mine. On my way to the door, I reached out with my free hand and
grabbed my mask from the vanity. The shimmery, silver number was
barely big enough to cover my eyes and would do nothing to hide my
identity. It was purely for show. I couldn’t attend my own
masquerade party without a mask. With Maya’s arm still looped
through mine, I managed to tie the ribbons together behind my head,
securing the mask in place over my eyes without even messing up my
hair.