Love Fortunes and Other Disasters (20 page)

She nudged his nose with hers. “Well?”

Sebastian flinched. “You're not serious.”

“You keep questioning my sincerity,” Fallon said.

He stepped away from her, taking his warmth with him. “You know how I work. I date casually.”

Fallon placed her shopping bag on the ground. “I'm familiar with your policy. Doesn't it get tiring? One of these days, a girl's going to enter your life who you won't want to let go of. I'm not saying that I'm that girl, but maybe I could be.”

Sebastian backed up a few more steps, a look of panic on his face. “You weren't supposed to say this to me.”

Fallon dug her fingers into her sweater. Her tongue felt heavy, but she forced herself to speak. “I see,” she whispered. “I guess I failed you. I should have maintained my role as a prudish Fallon Dupree: the princess who would no sooner open a bag of manufactured cookies than ever have feelings for you.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I thought you were that strong.”

“It's not a matter of being strong,” she said. “You're just too lovable.”

Sebastian tried to rebuild his wall of boredom. He crossed his arms, dropped his shoulders, and turned slightly away from her. “Stop,” he said.

If Fallon concentrated, she bet she could hear both their hearts cracking to pieces. Her mouth kept moving. “The real question is whether you're capable of giving me a cold kiss. Could you press your lips to mine without caring? Somehow, I don't believe you could.”

Sebastian's face crumbled. “Stay away from me,” he said brokenly. “I know we weren't actually dating, but this is as good as breaking up. Good-bye.”

Before she could move, Sebastian ran. She watched him disappear down the street. Her body felt cold, so very cold, and nothing she could have worn would have stopped the shivers from spreading through her veins. She swallowed thickly, picked up her shopping bag, and counted the houses until she made it to the student housing complex.

*   *   *

Despite the dry clothing that Sebastian had bought her, Fallon woke up on Sunday morning with a stuffy nose. She blew hard enough into her tissue to pop her ears.

To be fair, this was her fault. She had been the one to insist they find Hard-boiled Hal last night. She'd also been too miserable to take a hot shower when she got home, so the cold that had been kept at bay slipped its way inside her.

Tangled in her sheets, with bluebirds singing outside her window, Fallon crumpled her tissue and cried.

*   *   *

Plagued with congestion and a sore throat, Fallon stayed home on Monday and Tuesday. Doing homework made her dizzy and she could only clean the apartment in short spurts before her muscles complained of too much exertion. Mostly, she napped on the couch.

Whenever someone knocked on her door, she woke with a start, her heart twisting painfully in her chest. Could Sebastian be on the other side? She'd make her way to the door gingerly, her blanket wrapped around her shoulders like a shield. But usually Nico was there with her missed homework. He'd gotten permission from his parents to work later hours at the booth in order to help her.

“Your apartment is still immaculate,” Nico said, gawking.

“There are no excuses for a dusty home,” Fallon said, quoting her mother. She reclaimed her nest of sheets and pillows on the couch and allowed Nico to make her some hot tea. “What happened at school?”

“The twins are dying for you to get better,” he said, filling the teakettle with water. “They want to know if you've made progress on finding Hard-boiled Hal.”

Fallon would have thought that Sebastian had told them by now. Even though the next club meeting wasn't until Thursday, a story like that would be hard to keep secret. “Didn't Sebastian tell you?”

“He's been avoiding us.”

Fallon sat up, alarmed. “Are you sure?”

“When has Bastion ever been hard to find?” Nico said, turning on the stove. “Now, we're lucky if we see him in the halls. He even ignored the twins when they said hello to him this morning. Mirthe threatened to plant a hurricane charm in his locker, but Sebastian just kept walking as if she wasn't there.”

She blew her nose, trying to fight a headache.

After leaving the water to boil, Nico joined her on the couch and searched her face. “Does this have anything to do with you, Fallon?”

She wanted to lie, but tears bubbled up instead. “Oh, Nico.”

“We're friends, right? You can tell me what's bothering you.”

Rehashing Saturday night started off easily. She glossed over Hal, deciding to save the details for the club. By the time she got to her request for a real kiss, Fallon was crying again. Nothing dramatic, but even the smallest of tears made it hard for her to breathe.

Ignoring the pile of tissues between them, Nico hugged her. He smelled of canal water and sunshine. “Of course you love him,” he crooned. “I'm sorry for it. Your fortune is unforgiving.”

“You're not surprised?”

“I had my suspicions,” Nico said with a grin. “I doubt you would have spent so much time with a boy you actually hated, Fallon Dupree.”

She tried to laugh with him, but it came out as a pitiful sob. “Do you think he likes me back?”

Nico handed her a fresh tissue. “Maybe. Why else would he have said those things to you?”

*   *   *

Fallon felt well enough to return to school on Wednesday. When she got dressed in the bathroom, she found that the skin over her heart was red and aggravated. She must have been scratching it in her sleep. November breathed frost on the stone walls and patches of grass.

She didn't know how to act when she saw Sebastian again. Was she supposed to smile? Say hello? Call him by his nickname, accompanied by a slew of curse words? Most girls did the last one.

As it turned out, Fallon didn't need to worry; Sebastian made the choice for her. She didn't see him at all on Wednesday, even though she searched the hallways between classes and stayed behind after school. On her way to history class on Thursday, Sebastian brushed her shoulder. She tried to grab him, but he slid through the students, his legs carrying him far away from her. He didn't come to the charm-making club either, much to the twins' annoyance.

“We can't lose a rebel,” Mirthe whined. “Sebastian might be spreading all our secrets at this very moment. Why didn't you think of this, Femke?”

Femke tapped on the jar of pig's eyeballs and shrugged.

Nico said, “Maybe he's just taking a break.”

“We don't have time for breaks! This is a rebellion!” Mirthe wrung her hands. “Okay, how about phase two? Please tell me that we've made progress on that.”

Hijiri had nothing to report. Fallon assumed as much, since she'd caught Hijiri wandering the complex, snipping specimens for her own secret love charms. Dulling the effects of Camille's charm on Martin preoccupied Nico these days, so he hadn't found allies either. Plus, he thought that asking a sympathetic tourist for help felt wrong; this was Grimbaud's problem, and needed to be solved by Grimbaud alone.

“You guys need to work harder,” Mirthe said. “Femke and I can't advance phase two because we're prepping phase three. It's more complicated than we anticipated.”

Nico frowned. “What's phase three?”

“We can't tell you until phase two is over.”

“We're getting nowhere,” he groaned.

Fallon told the club about Hard-boiled Hal's silencing charm and juvenile decorating. Despite Mirthe's prodding for details, she spoke dryly. The story wasn't as exciting without Sebastian there to share the telling. “No matter how much we argued, Bram remained stubborn. He's not on our side.”

“All is not lost,” Femke said quietly. She consulted her notebook. “Fallon's still made contact with the spinsters.”

Fallon nodded. “Ms. Ward seems eager to help me.”

Mirthe snapped her fingers. “Then take her up on the offer. Ask for a tour of the Spinster Villas.”

“Why?”

“If you spend time with Ms. Ward, she might give in and join us. She could even recruit the other spinsters.”

“We're not going to storm Zita's shop with an army of angry spinsters and bachelors, are we?”

“They don't have the guts to follow us where we're going,” Mirthe said. “The important part is that we have more spies. More information. People to turn to on the night when we finally face Zita and change Grimbaud.”

“We're counting on you, Fallon,” Femke said.

The pressure only added to her worries.

*   *   *

Ms. Ward sent Fallon on an errand to deliver a note to the front office regarding a request for new books. Encyclopedias A through K had fallen apart, their spines nothing more than strings and dried glue.

Fallon absorbed the quiet locked in the halls as she walked. Each classroom was a fishbowl of bored students. Outside, a gym class was being held on the basketball court. In order to reach the main office, she had to walk along the lawn between buildings. Students ran drills, dribbling basketballs up and down the court. Sebastian was third in line, resting his hands on his knees as he waited. His gym clothes were dark with sweat. The gym teacher's whistle blew, startling him. Even though Fallon had suffered a cold, Sebastian looked worse. His lips were chapped, his skin wane. His eyelashes kept fluttering as if he was desperate for sleep.

The gym teacher tossed the ball at Sebastian. Sebastian caught it with his face.

The class erupted in laughter as the ball bounced away. Sebastian cradled his cheek, already letting his eyelids droop again, as the gym teacher blew his whistle like an alarm. He grabbed Sebastian by the back of his shirt and ordered him to sit out for the rest of class. Sebastian sank down against the chain-link fence, unaffected by the lingering snickers.

Fallon played with the edges of the note, unsure. Another girl would have laughed at the heartless boy, but she was nervous. Something wasn't right. Sebastian should have been happy that he'd ended things with her.

Sebastian looked behind him and saw Fallon. Despite the bruising on his cheek, he smirked at her. It was gone in a flash. Pain and longing flickered in his eyes until he turned away.

She wanted to stick her fingers through the fence and rub the skin behind his neck. There must have been knots there. If he turned around again, maybe she could stop the bruising on his cheek too. “Stupid Fallon,” she muttered to herself.

When she came back from her delivery, Ms. Ward called her over to the circulation desk. “I know that face. You've fallen in love, haven't you?”

Fallon bit her lip, nodding. No use lying.

“Oh, Fallon. These things never work out for people like us,” Ms. Ward said.

“I think I would feel better if I could see the villas.”

Ms. Ward brightened. “Oh, yes. Of course. Your future home. The other women will be pleased to see you again. We'll have so much fun. Would you like to stay over, to see what it's like?”

That was the last thing she wanted to do, but she said yes anyway.

*   *   *

The following week, Fallon went to her first student government meeting without Sebastian. She searched for him in the back of the round room despite knowing that no one would voluntarily waste a school night there. That night, Mirthe was her companion. The twin's noisy bangles picked up the room's acoustics. Fallon would have loved to skip the meeting, but because Femke had a paper to finish, Mirthe needed another representative.

“Let's sit near the front,” Mirthe said, almost jogging to claim her spot in the second row that lined up with the podium.

Fallon sat to her right and opened her notebook. Throughout the meeting, she concentrated on Nico. This was the only time she got to see his struggle to cut between Camille and Martin. Even though Nico hadn't managed to split Camille and Martin up at the table, he implemented a series of distractions for the president. When the other officers presented, Nico found ways to casually touch Martin's wrist while pointing out something on the meeting agenda. He made notes on Martin's agenda and whispered a joke or two that made Martin smile despite his dizzying bondage to the charm.

When it came time for Martin to present at the podium, he left his chair with more poise than he had at the start of the night. Camille's brow furrowed and she discreetly applied more perfume behind her ears.

“I'm sure you're all preparing for our upcoming finals,” Martin said slowly. “Midterms have come and gone, but our academic worries always remain. That's why it's important to take the time to celebrate. I'm proud to remind you of our annual fair at the end of January. The Welcome Love Fair. I'll explain it for the freshmen. Every year, Grimbaud High's clubs put together a fair open to the public, with games and food and midnight fireworks: all of it in honor of welcoming Love back for the spring.” He paused to turn a page in his notes.

“The snow's not stopping in February,” Mirthe whispered. “Dad says we're going to have snow until April this year. Good business for heating charms.”

The weather was much the same every year. Traditionally, the Welcome Love Fair took place right at the end of January so that Love would arrive to melt away the ice and snow for the rest of the school year. Fallon didn't know why the tradition still stood, when the next day, on February first, everyone still woke up to piles of snow on the ground.

“Nicolas will send around a sign-up sheet. Each club needs to choose some activity or food for the fair. If you have a different idea from what's already listed, please consult the officers about it. We'll then take it to the administration for approval,” Martin said.

When the paper made it to Fallon, half of the activities had already been taken. “What should we choose?” she asked.

Mirthe wasn't paying attention. Her eyes glittered, a ghost of a grin on her lips. Fallon recognized that look from the rebellion meetings: the twin was brewing an idea. Still, participation in the fair was mandatory. They needed to make a decision. “How about the popcorn machine?”