Love Storm (34 page)

"Hey!" Eva said, a little desperately. "I knew I hid these for a reason," she wailed as Matty sat down next to her and grabbed a cookie. "Now they're going to be all eaten." She slumped back in her seat, chomping moodily. "My plan's been ruined."

I shot her a glance and she nodded just slightly. I knew she also meant that our little plan to interrogate Tristan had officially been terminated – for now. It would be impossible to safely bring up the topic again with all of their siblings here.

Samantha had wandered into the kitchen also, the book
Ella Enchanted
dangling from one hand. "Hey, are those the cookies we bought last Sunday?" she inquired, settling into her chair next to Anthony. "I've been
looking
for those. What happened? They just disappeared into thin air."

xxxxx

Later that night after dinner I sat down at my desk with Zack's tape playing in the background, holding the piece of paper that had his new address on the back. I fingered it, wondering if he happened to be thinking about me as much as I was about him. God, it couldn't be
healthy
to be this obsessed over one guy.

What was I supposed to write to him about? It was not exactly
easy
to write to someone like him, especially under the circumstances that we were in. I rubbed my forehead absentmindedly, staring at the blank piece of binder paper in front of me. I decided, what the hell, picked up my pen, and just started writing. Just because I was writing it didn't mean I had to send it.

Dear Zack,

You wanted me to write to you, so here's your letter. Just to let you know, I'm furious with you right now, but here's your letter anyway. I figured, with your people skills, you'll probably need all the letters you can get. I hope you arrived in Milan with minimal trouble, and that your flight wasn't too bad. I listened to the tape today – the whole thing. I'm listening to it right now for the second time. It's beautiful, every single song, and even though I can't really bring myself to say it, I can't thank you enough for it. I can't even begin to imagine how much time you must have spent on it. I love "Forest Murmurs"; it's probably my favorite out of all the pieces on the tape. You should think about being a concert pianist someday – I'm not kidding. You are talented. Consider it.

I couldn't think of what else to write about, so I carried on to explain my day to him, especially the part about going to Payne's with Eva. Hey, he was a couple thousand miles away, so I didn't have to worry about him accidentally saying something to Tristan. It was harmless. I tried to keep the text as polite as possible, but there were times where I couldn't help myself, and just had to stick in the odd nasty comment. Call it a character flaw, but sometimes I can't control myself when it comes to these things.

By the time I finished it, it was three pieces of binder paper front and back in my messy scrawl. Eva always told me that I should try to improve my handwriting because she seemed to be the only one who could read it. She also said that it wasn't untidy in the male way. Supposedly (according to her, anyway), it actually looked decidedly feminine; it was just messy and hard to read. I always shrugged and told her I probably had better things to do than to worry about a trifle like my handwriting, but now I worried because I didn't know if Zack would be able to decipher what I was trying to say. I pictured him sitting at a desk in his dormitory, scratching his head and puzzling over whether Tristan's potential girlfriend's name was spelled "Katherine" or "Katharine" or "Katheryn", and grinned a little.

I closed the letter by saying:

I know my handwriting's not the best in the world, so if you can't read it, don't hesitate to tell me. I'll try to write it neater, or I can type it up on the computer so it's easier for you. Anyway, I hope you're alright over there in Italy. Hold up your side of the promise and write back, yeah?

I wasn't exactly sure how to close it off. "Sincerely"? "Yours truly"? "Love"? I scoffed at the last one. Yeah,
right
. I finally settled on just signing my first name at the bottom. On second thought, I added a postscript:

What's the Romantic period?

I added my initials after that, sealed everything up, put two stamps on, just in case, and ran outside into the drizzle and clipped it to the outside of my mailbox, which, luckily, was situated at the side of my garage under a small overhang, so the letter wouldn't be sopping wet by the time the mailman picked it up tomorrow afternoon. I hurried back inside, speculating over whether it had been a good idea to actually post it. I half wanted to go back outside and snatch it back, but I figured, hey, if Zack wanted a letter, he could have that one. I'd just spent forty-five minutes writing it for him. He'd better be happy with it.

I sighed and walked up to my room slowly, gathering my pajamas and fresh underclothes to go take a shower. There were too many 'what if's in my life.

-
Zack
-

My eyes snapped open and were greeted by an unfamiliar room, shrouded in the shadows of night. I sat up quickly, panic overtaking me for a brief, heart-stopping moment, until I realized where I was and relaxed. It was my first night staying at the academy.

I forced my body to let go of some of its tension and stretched, yawning a little. I looked to my left and saw Leo's peaceful, sleeping form under his covers. At least someone was getting his full eight hours.

I didn't know why I had woken up so suddenly, but I had. I realized I had been dreaming about something, but couldn't quite remember what it was about… it had been a rather disturbing dream, but still by no means a nightmare. Something bad had been happening to me, I didn't know what, but in the midst of it, something wonderful had occurred as well. I frowned. How weird. I tried desperately to recall something, anything from the dream, but it was gone by now. It was hazy, but I knew I had driven somewhere… It had been late at night. I had had a purpose, somewhere to go, though the details of that escaped me also. I scratched my shoulder and got out of bed. I'd had enough encounters with insomnia to know by now that I would not fall asleep for the rest of the night.

Squinting a little and glancing at the digital alarm clock on Leo's bedside stand, I saw that I had been asleep for four hours, at the most. It was only four-thirty right now. Still, this had been the most consecutive hours of sleep I'd had in a long time.

I shivered. It was chilly in our room, and it was a habit of mine to sleep only in boxers, and a t-shirt if it was cold enough. I pulled one over my head now, plus a hoodie, and sat down in my desk chair.

Without even meaning to, my mind drifted to Winter. Before, I had realized that I had gone to her house to give her the cassette tape that I had been working on for so long. How I had given it to her and what she had said was still a mystery, especially since I had woken up in her bed (fortunately fully clothed). I thought grimly that in all probability she was spitting mad at me right now, probably cursing me into next week. I guess it was deserved. With a start, I remembered something I had done yesterday morning while I had been at her house. I sprang up from my chair and searched the pockets of the jeans I had been wearing the day before, and found my wallet. I flipped it open, and sure enough, there it was, at the front.

I had a picture of Winter, and now I stared at it, recalling how, after I had placed her gently back in her bed, I had taken a quick look around her room and seen the picture on her desk. I had taken it and placed it in my wallet. At the time, I hadn't really been thinking about what I was doing, just knew that I
had
to have that picture of her.

I sat back down heavily in my chair and turned on the desk light. I took out the picture, which was folded in half, and examined it. I both hated and loved how, even when Winter wasn't around, she still had this outrageous effect on me. I stared at the picture, something new and foreign squeezing my heart and wringing it dry.

It was dated on the back as August 15th, from last summer. Whoever had taken the shot had caught Winter unawares – she was at a beach, sitting on the sand with her legs stretched out in front of her and bare ankles crossed, leaning back on her elbows. Something off in the distance had caught her eye, and she was glancing at it, away from the camera. Her hair was tied up in a messy bun, a pair of sunglasses was perched atop her head, she was barefoot, and she was wearing a navy blue tank top with a white knee length skirt. The sun illuminated her tan skin and long legs. She looked completely at peace, and the small, secret smile that I adored was gracing her lips. She was absolutely gorgeous.

Much to my horror, my eyes began to sting with tears, and my mouth had turned to dust. I swallowed hard, blinking a few times and shaking my head. It was crazy how much this one girl held my universe in her hand. She had tilted my safe world on its axis and made me feel a whirlwind of emotions. I couldn't even really put into words what I felt for Winter, it was too complex. I wasn't
supposed
to feel these things. They were wonderful, and scary, and too hard to control. That was what frightened me the most.

I don't know how long I sat there, just looking at her picture.

"Zack?"

It was Leo.

"Hey," I said, licking my dry lips. My voice sounded like sandpaper. I cleared my throat.

"What are you doing up?" he asked, his voice scratchy from sleep. "It's like… five o'clock in the fricking morning, man.
Whoa
, who's that?" Leo was staring at the picture.

"No one," I said quickly, and tried to shove it in my pocket, but found out that, as a rule of thumb that I had temporarily forgotten, boxers did not have pockets.

"Hey," Leo said, wide awake now. He grabbed the photo and gave a low whistle. "She is
fi-ine
. Dude, she is hot. Wanna introduce her to me sometime?" He wiggled his eyebrows, grinning. Apparently the early hours slowed down his brain, as he hadn't used a swear word as part of an adjective to describe just how hot she was.

"No," I said stonily, snatching the picture back and sticking it in my wallet where it belonged with fumbling hands.

"Oh, sorry, she your girlfriend or something?" Leo said interestedly, sitting down on the end of my bed, stifling a yawn.

I rubbed my eyes tiredly. "Something like that. Actually, I take that back. I don't know what we are. I really don't." I knew Leo meant well, and that he was only curious, but I couldn't help feeling a little pissed at him. I hadn't wanted to share that picture with anyone. Not even my roommate.

Leo studied me closely, then asked softly, "What's her name?"

I blew out a breath and leaned back in my chair, my eyes drifting up to look at the ceiling.

"It's alright if you –"

"Winter."

"– don't want to ––What?"

I got up from my chair and started looking for clean clothes. "Winter. Her name's Winter."

"That's a pretty name," Leo said quietly.

"Let me guess," I said with a tired smile, having found fresh boxers and a beater. "It's still not as pretty as Belinda-Caterina."

Leo chuckled. "Hole in one. You catch on fast." He got up and went back to his side of the room.

"I'm going to go take a shower," I announced.

"Fine," he replied. "I'm going back to sleep. Dunno how you get up so early," he muttered, crawling back into his bed and yawning again. "Maybe it's just the jet lag… or something… or maybe you just get up early every morning… don't know… how you… do…it……"

Leo had talked himself back to sleep. I shook my head again, smiling a little despite my previous hard feelings toward him, and started for the bathroom.

Chapter 26: Word of the Wise

-Winter-

The first day of the new semester, Wednesday, was the worst day I have ever had the misfortune to experience.

Branner High School does not have the most intelligent of administrative staff. I can tell you that right now, because today was my first encounter with the blockheads. Somehow they managed to completely screw up my schedule so that I spent my whole morning waiting in a line to talk to my counselor. They had put me in French 1-2, AP Calculus, AP Biology, Orchestra, Athletics with the
softball
coach, CP English and Contemporary World Studies (both of which were classes for freshmen – read it again –
freshmen
). How they managed to flip my schedule around
that
much was beyond me. None of those classes were even remotely related to any of the classes I should have been in. Actually, I was really quite insulted. Did I
look
stupid enough to be in CP English?

So I waited in line all morning, as patiently as I could, to see Mr. Bower, my counselor. The line in front of me was huge – I had to stand through two periods out in the hall before I even made it inside the office. Apparently I wasn't the only one who had had my schedule screwed up. At passing time between first and second period, my friend from tennis, Rebecca, passed me by on her way to English.