Connection (Le Garde) (26 page)

Wendy ran her fingers through my hair. I put one of my legs between hers, my other on her side as I lay half on her, half next to her. I rested my hand on her stomach, her shirt between us. I gripped her side, and she tensed, so I relaxed my hand, telling myself not to go too fast.

Her muscles relaxed as her hands traveled over my chest and shoulders. My fingers lightly touched the skin on her waist. She broke away with a gasp, and I pulled my hand away.

“
Sorry,” I said breathlessly.

“
No, I’m sorry.” Her face was flushed. “I—look, this is—well, I haven’t kissed that many guys before.”

I brushed her lower lip with my thumb. “I couldn’t tell.”

She pulled on my shirt collar, crashing her mouth into mine.

That was the moment Jordan decided to come out of his room. I heard his laugh, and Wendy pushed me away. She scrambled out from underneath me and sat on her hands on the couch.

Jordan held up his hands, smirking. “Don’t worry, I’m just grabbing something from the bathroom.”

I sat next to Wendy as Jordan walked into the bathroom. He smiled at us. “We’ll be a while.” He walked into his room, and I heard the lock slide into place.

“
I’m sorry,” Wendy groaned, putting her face in her hands. “I’m doing this all wrong, aren’t I?”

I touched her knee. “Wendy, relax. You know what the last girl I kissed said?”

“
What?” She peeked out of her hair at me.

“‘
What the hell are you doing?’” I chuckled, and Wendy smiled.

“
Who was that?”

My smile faded. “No one.”

Wendy leaned back, biting her lip. It reminded me of Anna. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”

I put my hands on her lips. “Don’t apologize, okay?”

Wendy nodded, and I slowly lowered my hand. I took hold of hers, entwining our fingers together. She was so different from Anna. Though I had very little experience making out with Anna, I couldn’t imagine her apologizing three times in the course of a minute.

I really had to stop comparing her to Anna.

Wendy let out a small sigh. “It’s just that Vickie kept telling me what to do so I wouldn’t screw this up, and.
 
.
 
.I don’t know, she just made me really nervous.”

“
Well, I’m having a great time with you.” I kissed her knuckles. “I hope you’re having a good time with me.”

“
Yeah, I am.” Wendy leaned toward me and kissed me softly on the lips. We made-out for a while, and I tried not to move too fast or freak her out. She pushed me back on the arm of the couch and lay on top of me, moving her hands up and down my torso. I wound my fingers in her hair. I actually forgot about Anna for a while and just enjoyed kissing Wendy.

Vickie and Jordan finally came out around eleven, and Jordan announced he could take us all home. Wendy and I held hands in the back seat, her head resting on my shoulder. Jordan dropped me off first. Wendy kissed me before I got out, and Vickie made a catcall. I went inside and crawled into bed and really believed I could move on from Anna.

16. le plan (the plan)

Anna

I didn’t know why it took me so long to listen to the voicemail from Aaron. Maybe I kept forgetting. Or maybe I didn’t want to think about that day again. Whatever the case, I finally listened to it.

“
Hey, Anna. I understand why you don’t want to talk to me. It was uncalled for, kissing you when we’d just been talking about Steven.” He paused. “I don’t regret it, though. I just wish I’d had better timing.” I put my head in my hands, closing my eyes. “But look, you can tell Steven if you really want to. I can tell your relationship with him is important to you.” He cleared his throat. “Just make sure you really think it’s the right thing to do, because once he knows, he knows forever. Call me if you want. I’ll talk to you later.”

There was a beep, and then the robotic voice telling me how to delete it. I saved it. I pulled the covers over my head, closing my eyes. I’d slept like hell at Sam’s house last night, waking up every hour from nightmares. I’d finally given up and read, but then I’d fall asleep and creatures from the movie would work into my book. It sucked. I still felt like someone was going to creep into my room.

Once he knows, he knows forever.

Was that his way of implying Steven and I might not last forever? I was supposed to be thinking about the future, according to Drew and Kristina and my mom. I was sixteen years old. I would probably have this connection with Aaron until one of us died—the thought of Aaron dying terrified me. Would I be with Steven for a long time?

I sighed. Our relationship was important to me, and so was not lying to him. But I understood what Aaron said about this connection being ours. Even though Kristina and Drew and my mom knew.
 
.
 
.they knew because they were like us. Steven might not understand. He might think I was crazy. The only way I could prove it was by controlling some kind of electrical current with Aaron.

And then what? It would change our relationship forever. I doubted Aaron’s mom knew about her husband’s connection with my mom. She wouldn’t be so friendly, no matter how nice of a person she was. I wouldn’t be that friendly to someone who had a connection like that with Steven.
 
.
 
.or Aaron.
 
.
 
.

Aaron had changed his mind, though. He was okay with sharing this part of him just because I wanted it so much.

There were so many ways to have a conversation with someone in the twenty-first century. I could e-mail Aaron, I could text him, I could call him, or I could show up at his house. Maybe it was dumb that it took me nearly thirty minutes to decide, but I finally called him.

“
Hello?” he answered.

“
Hey, Aaron. It’s me.” Whenever I said that, I secretly dreaded the other person on the line wouldn’t recognize my voice.

“
Hey, what’s up?”

“
Oh, nothing much. I slept like hell.”

“
Nightmares?” He sounded concerned, but I knew he was probably amused.

“
I woke Sam up like four times,” I said, shaking my head. I wasn’t even going to sleep over at her house until after the movie, then I begged her to let me come over. I was home now, curled up in my bed. “I’m never letting her talk me into a scary movie again.”

Aaron chuckled. “Yeah, you were freaking me out last night. I got kind of a headache.”

“
Oh, sure, make this about you,” I said sarcastically.

“
It’s not even real, Anna.”

“
But they make it so real!” I huffed. “Whatever. I’m just not going to another one ever again.”

“
Good idea. You’ll only give yourself a seizure or something.”

I turned over onto my stomach. I thought about mentioning Wendy or his date, but I didn’t want to hear about that just yet. Or maybe ever. “So, I finally listened to your voicemail.”

“
Oh, yeah?” Aaron’s voice sobered.

“
Yeah.
 
.
 
.thank you for changing your mind.” I took a deep breath. “That means a lot to me.”

“
Well, I know he’s important to you,” he said quietly.

“
I don’t think I’m going to tell him,” I said.

“
Really?” I swore I heard relief in his voice.

“
Yeah. I hate lying to him, though. We’re going to have to work something out.”

“
Something like what?”

I picked at a thread on my pillowcase. “I don’t know. Like we should do homework every time we meet or something.”

“
Okay.”

“
And just once or twice a week. Anything more than that seems excessive.”

“
That makes sense.”

“
And no more kisses, Aaron. Not while I’m going out with Steven.” I closed my eyes. Why, oh,
why
had I added that last part?

“
Well, let’s hope you’re not going out with him for long.”

“
And don’t do that. I can’t have one of my best friends who hates my boyfriend, okay?”

“
I’m one of your best friends again?” He sounded genuinely surprised.

“
Yeah, I guess so.” I smiled. “Do you want to meet at the house today to practice?”

“
Yes!” I could hear the smile in his voice. “I’d love to.”

* * *

We spent a while practicing our power. I thought we were getting stronger and quicker, and we could control it better. At the end of two hours, though, we started to get bored of the same appliances and light bulbs. We sat down in the hallway, playing around with the race car.

“
I feel like we could do a lot more, you know?” Aaron asked, his eyes bright. “Like that lightning storm.”

“
That was kind of freaky.” I bit my lower lip.

“
But
awesome
.”

I grinned. “Yeah, it was awesome.”

Aaron looked around the house. “I just wish we could practice somewhere else, you know. Somewhere where there’s a lot of power, but people aren’t going to notice.”

“
Like.
 
.
 
.in the middle of the night?”

Aaron’s eyes lit up. “What did you have in mind?”

“
I don’t know. I just thought that if we went somewhere in the middle of the night and we were quiet about it, then people shouldn’t notice, right?” I felt like I should go to juvie right now for even thinking about it.

“
Depends on what we do. People are going to notice a bunch of lights flickering on and off.”

“
Definitely.” I bit my lip again, thinking of all that electricity did. Wondering what we could do when we created electrical currents.

Aaron looked at me slowly, and I could tell he had an idea. One that could get us in big trouble. I narrowed my eyes. “What?”

“
We should visit the power plant.”

I stared at him. “Are you crazy?”

“
Just visit it!” he said quickly. “I just want to see it, feel it. We could link hands and see what happens—”

“
Aaron,” I said, “we’ve already caused a lightning storm and a power outage of all the computers in the public library and the auditorium at school. How could going to a power plant possibly be a good idea?”

“
We have more power now—”

“
With ipods and light bulbs,” I cut him off, “not with thousands of volts of electricity.”

“
Anna—”

I took my hand from his, crossed my arms, and leaned back against the wall. “No. You’ll have to drag me there.”

The race car stopped a couple inches from Aaron’s knee, and he tossed away the remote control. He thought I was a huge buzz kill and never took any risks. I wasn’t going to completely disregard Kristina and Drew’s advice about laying low ‘just to see what happened.’

“
Fine,” he said, “but eventually, we should go there.”

I rolled my eyes.

We were silent for a few moments, and I said, “How about during the next rainstorm, we come out here and try to make lightning again?”

Aaron grinned, his mood lightening. “I like your thinking.”

“
So, I’m not a buzz kill?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.

“
Where would you get that idea?” He grinned. He nudged my knee. “Look, I want to meet Joseph Harwood.”

I bit my lip. I knew we couldn’t avoid this for long, but I’d hoped we’d be able to. “I don’t know, Aaron.”

“
Don’t know what? Do you want to meet him?”

“
Sure, I’m curious. But my mom doesn’t want me to.”

“
I got that much.” When I told her I was going to practice with him today, she’d talked to Aaron on the phone to make sure we weren’t meeting with Kristina and Drew. “But think of all he could tell us. More about Pairs and the history of that Le Garde thing.” His face lit up. “It’d be awesome to learn about other people who had this. I wonder what else they can do.”

I shrugged, twirling some curls around my fingers. “I don’t know how we’re going to get down to San Francisco.”

“
Maybe you could go down with Kaylie and Sam, and I could go with Mitch or something.”

“
Then we lie again to get away from them for a couple hours,” I grumbled.