Flicker (8 page)

              Alex's eyebrows drew together as the laughter left his eyes. He gave her another of his searching looks, and she knew he didn't believe her. That he could read her so easily really was troublesome and disconcerting. “If that's what you want,” he said finally.

              Instinctively, Elise went to reach for him, but thought better of it at the last second and checked the movement. Smiling up at him instead, she said reassuringly, “Alex, really, it's not like that. It's just, my AP classes are really piling on homework already, and I'm getting swamped. I just need to take a couple of days to catch up, but I promise, as long as our plans for this weekend are still on, Saturday I'm all yours.” Accustomed though she was to lying through her teeth, it bothered her to lie to Alex. That was a dangerous line of thinking, however, and she shut it down as best she could.

              Alex frowned slightly as he searched her eyes, once again with that intensity that made her feel like he was trying to read her mind. Finally, he smiled ruefully. “I'll hold you to that,” he said seriously.

              “So what are we going to do for an entire day together, anyway?” She asked teasingly, mostly to try to erase the tiny spark of... disbelief? Uncertainty? Hurt?... that she saw in his eyes.

              “Oh,” he smirked. “I'm sure we'll figure something out.”

              Elise was grateful that Alex took her at her word after school and bid her goodbye outside the Latin room, rather than try to walk her home. She appreciated his concern for her, and generally enjoyed their friendship, but she couldn't deny that too often his rapid shifts of mood and disconcerting perceptiveness left her feeling off guard and vulnerable. When confronted with the prospect of arguing with her parents, something she tended to avoid, she was less willing than usual to sacrifice her composure.

              She didn't go home right away, but instead spent more than half an hour browsing the school library. The librarian was used to seeing her, and gave her a friendly nod when Elise entered the large room. Elise loved everything about books-- the smell of old paper, the way the turn of every page brought something new, the way each little rectangle contained, compressed, an entire new world, and especially the way she could run away into those worlds for a while. She picked out three books that looked interesting, and was on the verge of settling down right in the library to start one. A glance at the clock, however, told her that her parents would be home in the next hour or so. With a sigh, she checked her books out at the counter, stopped by her locker to drop off unnecessary textbooks, and walked home.

              Elise hadn't completely been lying to Alex about the brutal homework load from her AP classes; she was only halfway through her second assignment when she heard a car pull into the driveway. She didn't look up when she heard her father's heavy footsteps on the front porch, or when the door opened and his briefcase thumped onto the floor.

              “Mom put something in the slow cooker this morning,” she called into the hallway, keeping her tone distracted and her nose buried in her history book. She didn't think she was likely to avoid a fight, but she was going to try.

              Her father grunted, acknowledging her statement, as he walked past the doorway to the den and climbed the stairs to change out of his suit. Elise got the impression he was saving what he had to say until her mother got home, which made sense-- that way, her mom would know firsthand that he'd said something and he wouldn't have to recount it. Economy of words, that was her dad.

              They didn't have to wait long: barely fifteen minutes later, Elise heard her mother's car pull up. She was just finishing the questions she had to answer for history class, but slowed the speed of her writing so her mother wouldn't catch her changing textbooks and accuse her of not starting her homework until the last minute. She felt a touch of her earlier fury as it was brought home once again just how little her parents trusted her.

              The moment the front door opened, Elise knew at once that her mother had spent the last twenty-four hours stewing about their brief interaction yesterday. Her high heels clacked sharply on the hardwood floor of the foyer, and she hung her purse so hard on the clothes tree that Elise heard the top of it collide with the wall. Heaving a sigh, she leaned back on the couch, pulling her history book up in front of her face to hide her scowl. She'd tried to avoid this.

              “Robert? Are you up there?” Elise's mother, Marie, sounded sugary sweet. Elise rolled her eyes at the affected tone.

              “I'll be down in just a minute,” Robert called down the steps, and Elise heard him stumping around upstairs.

              Soon enough, he joined her mother, who hadn't even bothered to take off her shoes, and the two of them entered the den where Elise was still pretending to work. She didn't look up as they settled on the couch across from her, and for a few moments she listened to them adjusting themselves on the cushions. Marie broke the silence first.

              “So, Elise, did you enjoy your day?” Still sweet.

              Elise laid her textbook down very carefully, trying not to drop it as her hands shook with anger. “Oh, yes, it was lovely. How was yours?” She replied in the same tone, meeting her mother's eyes across the room.

              “Well, honey, I didn't have a good day. I was distracted all day because I was worrying about you. What do you have to say about that?” Marie's peppy voice was fraying a bit. Elise saw her father out the corner of her eye, leaning back on the couch and crossing his arms. He wasn't likely to speak unless one of them dragged him into it.

              “I'm very sorry you weren't able to focus on your work,” Elise answered, then added acidly, “Perhaps you should request a demotion to a position that requires less of your attention. It seems very easy to distract you.” If they were going to fight, she thought resignedly, it may as well at least be a good one. No point going at it half-way.

              “Don't talk to your mother in that tone of voice,” her father snapped, flaring up. That hadn't taken long.

              “Elise, have you been lying to us?” her mother demanded bluntly.

              “About what, mother?” Elise glared at her.

              “Don't play stupid, you know perfectly what. Your father and I asked you on the first day of school whether there were any boys you were interested in, and you said no. Then yesterday I caught you sneaking around with some guy who looks like he's in college, and when I asked you about him, you threw a fit. What exactly is going on?” Her mother's voice rose shrilly through her accusation, until Elise wouldn't have been surprised to see the woman pointing at her dramatically like people did on TV.

              “Sneaking around?” Elise demanded hotly. “We were walking home from school! How is walking down the sidewalk sneaking? And by the way, he isn't in college-- he's in my Latin class. Sorry if he's too tall for you, or something.”

              “So there is a boy!” Elise's father exclaimed, and she wondered if he had been holding on to hope that her mother had made the whole thing up.

              “We're friends,” Elise said, crossing her arms over her chest. “You wanted me to have friends, remember? He's new, I offered to show him around school, we walk home together some days. Friends. And no, for your information, I didn't lie to you-- when you asked me, we'd had all of one conversation that wasn't worth mentioning. So terribly sorry I didn't volunteer updated information immediately. Do you want to hear what books we talked about and what he ate for lunch yesterday, too?”

              “That's enough of your smart mouth, young lady,” her father growled.

              “Of course we don't care what he ate for lunch,” her mother said, clearly making an effort to rein in her temper. “But not telling us that you're talking to this boy is most definitely hiding it from us. You need to tell us things.”

              “Why?” Elise demanded. “Because you react so well to the information? I walked home with him yesterday and you jumped down my throat like I did something wrong. I didn't object to the fact that you asked about him, I objected to your tone.” Elise purposely parroted back words her mother had used with her many times in the past, hoping it would make an impression. She wasn't exactly being truthful-- she still didn't particularly want to discuss Alex with her parents. However, she would have minded a lot less if she hadn't immediately felt like she had to defend herself.

              Marie sighed, and Elise could see her knuckles whiten as she clenched her fists, trying to calm down. Elise took a deep breath herself, figuring she ought to stop escalating the encounter if her parents were attempting to take what she said to heart. “Elise sweetie, we just want to make sure you're making the right choices here. Of course we want you to have friends, but you have to be careful not to open yourself to, well...” she hesitated. “Other things.”

              “Oh?” Elise's eyebrows shot up. “So when you asked me last week if I was interested in dating anyone, it was really so you could make sure I wasn't going to? No dating until college, is that it? Or were you just going to arrange a marriage for me?” Elise lost her grip on her temper again, unable to stomach their recurring theme of saying the right things, then not following through.

              “Elise, of course we want you to have a relationship--” her mother began, but her father cut his wife off.

              “Let's not lie to her, Marie. Elise is clearly a big girl who can make her own decisions now.” He looked his daughter in the eyes, and she disliked what she saw there. “Elise, we want to make sure that you're not behaving in any way that could send boys the wrong kind of signals. Your mother and I have made a lot of sacrifices for you, and we're worried that as you're entering your rebellious phase, you're going to throw all of that away.”

              Elise's eyes widened in shock, then narrowed. She stood sharply, her fists clenched in her skirts. Her entire body shook with fury. “You've made yourself perfectly clear.” She hissed. “I promise, you'll never have to make sacrifices again.” Shoving her history homework roughly into her backpack, she left the room before she could say what she was thinking.

              In her shower that evening, Elise decided fiercely that if her parents truly didn't trust her, really had so little faith in her after she'd been so good for so long, why should she waste her time trying to prove them wrong? If they resented her so much, then she had no further need to try to please them. She'd told Alex she would be busy until Saturday, and she was loathe to go running back to him now. But after the way her afternoon had gone... she smiled at herself in the mirror as she toweled her hair dry, and was pleased at the mix of seduction and suppressed rage she saw there-- she looked dangerous, and she liked it. She'd already decided she was ready to face the world again; maybe the time really had come to stop caring what other people thought of her.

3 WITHOUT HESITATION

              Elise's new-found boldness carried through the night, and when she woke in the morning it reared its head as she pulled on a red shirt that stretched tight over her chest, with a neckline that dipped daringly low. Her black skirts made the color pop more than usual, and she dug out a pair of black leather boots with thin, three inch high heels. She glanced in the mirror to add a few subtle touches of makeup, pleased that she remembered how to apply it well, and nodded in grim satisfaction at the young woman whose image greeted her. Her parents had both already left for work, so she was spared having to deal with any fallout from last night's fight. After rapidly gulping down a glass of orange juice and a bowl of cereal, Elise wasted no time in getting out of the house and over to the park, where she could enjoy the beautiful morning.

              Her mood persisted as she sat through half the day, trying to be patient; however, Elise quickly realized that she wouldn't be content waiting until eighth period today. Inspired by Alex's concerned visit to her lunch yesterday, after she finished eating she stowed her backpack in her locker and headed back toward the cafeteria.

              Normally at this point, she had to dash up to the third floor for probability and statistics class, but as it was one of her few non-advanced courses, she decided skipping one day wouldn't matter. Instead, she blended in with the crowd funneling its way through the lunch lines and pushing into the cavernous cafe, her heart thundering at her own daring. The closer the crowd allowed her to creep to her goal, the more her fingertips tingled and her nerves buzzed with jittery excitement. She could practically feel the adrenaline flushing through her system, and she wasn't overly surprised at the force of it-- Elise had spent her whole life doing what she was told, and in particular had focused these last few years on quietly keeping her head down and staying out of trouble. Now, she was flagrantly flaunting the rules-- it was enough to set her head spinning.

              As soon as Elise entered the large, glass-walled cafeteria, however, she could tell that something was very different. Her lunch periods had always been loud and rowdy to a point, with her fellow students eager to take advantage of their ability to talk and move around with relative freedom, but this was something else entirely. The first word that came to mind as she paused just inside the door was “mayhem.”

              The noise hit her first, a roar akin to a physical blow, and it was what stopped her in her tracks. Every student in the crowded room seemed to be shouting at the tops of their lungs-- and not just them, but the supervising teachers, too. No one was in a seat; instead, her classmates butted heads angrily, tangled amorously, and danced in excitement, all but dashing around the room and engaging each other in a tumultuous outpouring of energy.

              Energy. There was no other word for it-- what she was witnessing was raw, unadulterated humanity. Elise had never seen anything like it. She forgot the part of her that was timid and terrified, the part of her that rationalized every word and deed, the little voice in the back of her mind that whispered constant criticism. Without even thinking, she stepped forward into the chaos.

              As soon as she entered the crowd, Elise was swallowed up in it. She was surrounded on all sides by people as they brushed up against her, touching her more than she had been touched in years, and lost as she was in the madness of it all, it didn't even occur to her to shrink away. What she did realize, however, was that this wasn't chaos. Or rather, there was an order to the pandemonium: someone was directing this storm.

              Not just someone: Alex. She couldn't quite see him through the throng, but she could practically feel his hands on this. She wasn't sure how, and she knew she'd never be able to explain it, but she knew without a doubt that this was all because of Alex, that he was somehow in the eye of the storm.

              A large boy bumped against her back, and she knew it was purposely, that he sought to engage her. She spun on her heel, glaring up into his eyes, daring him to continue trying to distract her from her purpose. She had come here for Alex, and she would accept no less.

              And yet, as she stared up at the boy-- Lance, she remembered his name abruptly-- she was diverted by a part of her that reached out to him, too, sensing how deeply he wanted her. He gazed down into her eyes, his mouth slightly slack as if he wanted to speak but couldn't recall the words, and she smiled at his desire. She understood perfectly-- she had been so terribly lonely for so very long. Deprived of contact with other people, she realized now that she had been starving.

              Abruptly, Elise felt a touch on her shoulder, and whirled, her skirts flaring out from her legs. A girl stood there-- small, just a freshman, barely as tall as Elise herself. Her dark brown eyes were fixed on Elise's face, and she too reached out, yearning. They were all around her-- a round-faced boy, a girl with multitudes of braids, a girl wearing heavy makeup, a boy with too many freckles to count-- all begging to touch her, to be part of her, to have whatever she would give them, to give her everything they had. Elise stretched out her arms, laughing wildly, and accepted their passion.

              “Elise!” A sharp voice came from behind her.

              Elise turned reluctantly, and there he stood. She caught sight of his deep blue eyes, impossibly bright, and her focus snapped onto him, the only one who mattered, narrowing until he was the only person in the room. “Alex,” she whispered. Distantly, she was aware that the swelling bubble of energy had popped for everyone else-- the people around her suddenly lost their drive to interact, stopped shouting and pushing and went dazedly to sit down. She didn't care.

              Alex was striding toward her, and she drew herself up to meet him, chin tilted up and hands held loosely at her sides, ready to grab him and pull him close. But he didn't give her the chance. As soon as he reached her, he seized her arm just above the elbow in a bruising grip that brought her anger simmering to the surface of her roiling emotions. Before she could strike out at him, though, he was pulling her, dragging her through the oblivious crowd so quickly she nearly had to run to keep her balance.

              Alex made for one of the side exits, forcing her outside with him and into the warm fall air, not stopping until they were all the way down the length of the school building. Elise's fury at being manhandled peaked quickly, but it wasn't pure rage-- the emotion was confused by a tangle of lust and excitement and a little nervousness. Before she could decide which she wanted to act upon, Alex drew up by a small grove of trees by the edge of the football stadium. Her anger flared up again as he pulled her to a halt, and without thinking, never doubting that she could, she jerked free of his iron grasp on her arm.

              “What the hell?” She faced off with him, hands balled into fists and chest out, everything about her screaming aggression.

              He met her eyes, his expression carefully blank, but deep within him she thought she saw pain. She could also tell he was trying very hard to be calm, and something about his attempt at detachment drained away most of her rage. But in its wake came the tiny, critical voices in her head that sounded like her parents.

             
“The wrong kind of attention,” her mother whispered.

              “Throwing away our sacrifices,” her father growled.

              One day of deciding not to hide anymore, and she'd already gotten herself involved in some kind of riot-- or orgy, she wasn't sure which. What had she been thinking? Letting so many people just touch her like that-- and not all of them had laid their hands on her arms, she recalled with abject horror. It hadn't felt wrong at the time, though-- it had felt, somehow, perfect. She'd suddenly realized how terribly lonely she was, how starved she felt without any connection to other people-- just in time for her classmates to reach out for her.

              But still, what would they think now? She tried to picture it objectively, without the rush she'd felt at their contact, and the image she came up with was something out of a nightmare-- some wanton slut just opening her body and letting everyone in the room reach out and grab her. Elise began to tremble from head to toe, and blushed so hard she felt faint.

              She must have staggered a bit, because Alex reached out and took her by her shoulders, turning her so he could look into her eyes.

              She met his gaze despite her humiliated terror, desperate for answers.

              “Alex, what just happened?” She gasped up at him.

              She felt his breath on her cheek as he sighed. “Are you all right?” He asked. She frowned, nodding automatically, and reached up to grasp his wrists, clutching at him.

              “What was that?” She repeated deliberately, looking hard into his eyes.

              He glanced down before he answered, and she instantly knew she wouldn't like whatever he had to say. “Can you forgive me if I say I can't tell you? Not yet,” he amended quickly as she opened her mouth furiously. “There are things I'm not sure of yet, and I dislike that feeling even more than you do. Can you trust me, just for a little while?” Her lip curled into a sneer, and he added, “Please?”

              The sincerity in his voice gave her pause. She was more off balance than she'd ever been, and her world felt like it had been turned upside down. She wanted nothing more than stability, answers, for him to explain absolutely everything that had just happened, down to the smallest detail. She wanted him to say it had been some sort of fluke, or dream-- something that had never happened.

              He gripped her shoulders tightly, with her hands on his wrists holding him there, and she suddenly realized he wasn't just steadying her- she could feel him trembling, too. If he felt the same way she did, she couldn't help but be sympathetic; if it was her having to answer hard questions right now, she knew for a fact she'd screw it up. As it was, she was pretty sure she was in shock. Spitting a curse at his feet, frustrated that even this once, she couldn't be selfish and demand everything from him, she nodded sharply. “Soon,” she snapped, meeting his eyes fiercely. “Very soon, you are going to explain everything.”

              “Thank you,” she heard him whisper as his hands tightened on her shoulders.

              That reminded her of all the hands on her body, of Lance brushing against her back, and she jerked away from him abruptly, a shudder running through her. “That wasn't me,” she mumbled to the ground, wrapping her arms around her chest as she turned away. “That wasn't normal. I don't do things like that-- I don't touch people, I don't let people touch me-- I don't even want people to look at me!”

              “I know,” he crooned, his voice soothing. She was grateful that he refrained from touching her again. “Just give me a few days to make sure I understand everything, and on Saturday I'll answer any questions you ask.” Her back to him, she nodded again.

              They stood in silence for a few minutes, Elise's sense of time ticking away warring with her abject refusal to go back into the school. She could practically feel Alex behind her, wanting very badly to reach out to her, and she appreciated his restraint. She heard him let out a long breath.

              “So, dare I ask how it went with your parents last night?” His voice was still carefully neutral.

              “Leave me alone, Alex. I need to think,” she snapped reflexively, but her heart wasn't in the words. She was quickly realizing that no matter how much she thought about the incident, she wouldn't come up with any answers on her own, and the last thing she needed was to be left to the mercy of the criticisms in her mind. He must have caught her uncertainty, because while he didn't move any closer, he didn't leave her, either.

              “That bad, huh?”

              Elise shrugged, keeping her arms crossed tightly and protectively over her chest. “Look, there are things... things you don't know about me. I don't want to talk about it; please don't ask. But maybe it would be better for me to just keep living the way I have been, and for you to forget you ever met me.”

              There was a pause, and Elise heard leaves rustle above her head as the wind whispered through the trees beside them. Closing her eyes for a moment, she breathed deeply, stilling the turmoil inside herself with the reminder that nature was a constant, and would never let her down. A prickling at the back of her neck told her Alex had come up behind her, so she wasn't surprised to hear his soft voice so close to her ear.

              “Better for whom? Because you are not happy the way you are now.” He said it gently, but with absolute surety, and Elise's heart clenched at the knowledge that he had seen through her, had witnessed her pain. She was surprised to find that she wasn't embarrassed by his exposure of one of her secrets-- rather, it was a relief to share the burden. Everyone said sharing secrets lessened their weight, but she'd never found that to be true until now. Maybe, if it worked with this tiny nugget of truth, it would also be the case with... but Elise stopped herself from completing the thought. Plenty of people were unhappy, especially in high school-- that wasn't an abnormal truth, or an ugly one. No one would hate her or blame her for a little teenaged depression. But there was no way she could tell him the rest.