Rosethorn (7 page)

“I live on Sandy Creek Lane,” she said loudly.

“I know,” he replied, not looking back at her, but straight ahead. He was breathing hard as he pedaled rapidly, the back of his calves, taut and bulging. The wind whipped her hair back. Sera gripped the sides of the seat tightly, thighs squeezed hard, bouncing up and down when they hit gravel.

An oncoming car honked angrily at them as Andrew made a swift left turn down her street, narrowly missing it. He rode up to the corner townhouse next to the hill and stopped abruptly, knocking her to his back.

“Sorry."

Sera hopped back, on tiptoe as she awkwardly got off.

“Thank you." Sera stood, hands gripping her straps, biting her lower lip.

Andrew nodded, still trying to catch his breath.

“Meet me." He gestured towards the hill across the street from her house. "Up there. Eight o'clock tonight."

She nodded.

He pushed off and rode back on Venetia Boulevard towards the sun. Sera watched him fly up the street until she could no longer see him, only then turning to go in.

*****

Telling her grandmother that she was going to the store to buy some ice cream, Sera shut the patio gate then pelted down the street, across to the row of townhouses, climbed over the retaining wall, and ran up the hill. She found the path in the dark, hearing nothing but her pounding heart as she half-walked, half-ran the trail towards the top. A cool evening breeze gently shook the branches of the trees and the hill, which had been green a few weeks ago, was now golden with tall straw that danced with the wind. Out of breath, she reached the top, where there was a small grove of trees, beyond which was darkness.

She stood at the edge waiting, clenching and unclenching her hands and trying to catch her breath. Was she too late? Had she tarried too long?

A shadow moved amongst the trees. Sera couldn’t catch her breath. Andrew emerged from the shadows and walked towards her. He was wearing a dark sweatshirt and jeans and moved with hardly a sound. He was as tall as the trees to her, his eyes like black pools against the indigo sky. There was something almost frightening about his stealth and the look in his eyes, but Sera stayed.

He stopped at the edge of the trees, his arm outstretched towards her with an open hand. Sera walked to him and placed her hand in his.

He led her towards the trees and after a few steps they were surrounded by the dark. He said nothing as he slowly led her through a labyrinth of trees. Twigs and dead leaves crackled beneath their shoes. Andrew did not falter in his steps.

She looked back from where she came, the lights from the street below becoming smaller and smaller. No one knew where she was. All she could feel was his large hand holding hers, which had been cold but was now hot. She could disappear tonight and no one but him would know what had happened to her.

She wanted to pull her hand away and demand where he was taking her, but she kept it where it was and said nothing. They had come out of the grove of trees to the other side. The town lay below them, rows upon rows of lights twinkling white in a sea of black.

Sera looked at him, his face dark with the lights beyond him.

“Close your eyes.”

“Why do I have to?”

“Last night you asked me to do as you say and I did. Now it’s your turn."

Andrew’s dark shadow seemed undecipherable to her. She couldn’t fathom the expression on his face or what he meant to do. There was something impenetrable about his voice in the darkness. He will not yield.

She took a deep breath then stepped towards him. She closed her eyes and tilted her head up. She trembled and waited.

She heard him move towards her, then felt cloth on her face. Her hands reached up to her face. He was tying a blindfold on her.

“Why do I need a blindfold in the dark?"

He said nothing.

Apprehension replaced her disappointment. She had no idea what was about to happen or what he was about to do. The world was completely black.

He took her hand and led her forward a few feet. She stumbled, but he was there to steady her.

“Sit down.”

Sera began to crouch and placed a hand below her, feeling for the ground. She felt cardboard and sat on it. She drew up her knees and hugged them to her chest.

She could still run. It wasn’t too late. But something held her there and stifled the questions that sat on the tip of her tongue. She held her back straight, her head up. It would take more than a blindfold in the dark to rattle her.

She felt him sit behind her, his legs drawn on either side of her. He moved so that his chest was touching her back. Sera drew in her breath. Couldn’t he feel her heart pounding?

He lifted her hair from her back and draped it one side of her neck, falling over her hands and knees. He then leaned over to her ear, his mouth almost touching her neck. She could feel his breath on her skin.

“Trust me. I would never do anything to hurt you.”

Sera’s chest constricted. She didn’t know what to say. It was all out of her control. His mouth near her neck was enough to keep her paralyzed. She couldn’t run away, not now.

She felt him push off violently and they were plunging fast down the hill.

“Hang on!”

Sera started screaming. The wind was fast and cold as they hurtled down. Her stomach dropped and disappeared all together. The straw grass whipped her arms as they flew. Screaming hysterically, Sera desperately felt for anything she could hold onto as they went over a large bump and jumped in the air.

It seemed that they were airborne for an eternity. There was only air below them and air above. All she could hear was the wind surrounding them.

She was going to die tonight.

She found her stomach again for they were now plummeting down. They landed with a thud and skidded to a stop.

Sera ripped off her blindfold. They were at the bottom of the hill. She had somehow twisted herself so that she now had her arms around Andrew, her head on his chest. It took her a few moments to untangle. Her arms seemed frozen and unwilling to let go.

She could feel him waiting for her to speak, his breathing hushed.

Her voice sore from screaming and chest still pounding like racehorses from the splendid fall, she turned to him.

"Let's go again."

Over and over they ran up the steep hill. Breathless and clinging to him with her eyes closed, her head tucked under his, they would slide down on a square of cardboard, her heart leaping out of her body with each dizzying plunge that sliced through the stars, and for that lightning-quick moment in the air just before alighting, she felt as if they were riding on the back of the wind.

Chapter 6

“Sera?”

Against her will she stopped, reined in by invisible strings.

She heard a crash, then “Shit!” and turned to see piles of roof shingles sliding down the roof and Andrew slipping.

She cried out just as he caught himself at the edge of the second story.

Sera stood frozen, watching him swing his long legs to catch the side of the roof, then groaning, his arms large with the effort, Andrew hauled himself up.

As he walked the edge to the ladder, Sera unfroze and straightened her back, taking advantage of the minute it took for him to get down to compose herself, staying the urge to flee.

She said nothing as Andrew walked towards her, unhurried, gleaming with sweat, disheveled and unreal. She saw at once that he had grown taller, if that was possible, and wondered if there existed in the world a pair of shoes with heels high enough so that she could one day be eye level with him.

It seemed an eternity that he walked toward her, silent as she was silent, with that steady gaze, head tilted slightly so that she saw the full measure of his deep blue eyes.

With all her power she tried to summon just an ounce of the cool and imperious demeanor she had perfected in college, fueling her courage with how she must appear to him, in her black dress and high heels, her sunglasses and hair upswept in an elegant chignon. She liked to think that her worldliness would have made her unrecognizable to anyone who knew her back in the day.

That Andrew had seen through it all was a fluke. In a moment she’ll realize how boorish he’s become, perhaps how boorish he had always been, and she will finally be rid of the past.

As he came closer to where she was still standing, unmoving, Sera noticed without wanting to that Andrew had finally grown into his body. He was lean and muscled, his bare chest reddened by the sun. The way he moved showed no trace of the gangly boy he had been. No longer self-conscious of his height, he strode with an economy of grace. He wore old blue jeans with dried paint splatters and a tool belt slung low on his hips, his long torso rising above it, reminding her of Bernini’s David released. A marble statue come to life.

She saw all this in a moment for suddenly he was standing two feet in front of her. It was hard for her to breathe.

He bent to the ground next to her feet and as he came close to her, Sera could smell his sweat mixed with the clean scent of soap. His proximity made her dizzy.

The rose was in his hand and he was offering it to her.

“You dropped this."

“Oh. Thank-, Thank you." Stammering as she took it from him, glad to have something to hold. She didn’t know what to do with her hands, so stood there, clasping the rose in front of her.

“I’m afraid I stole it,” waving to the direction of the garden. “I couldn’t resist." Wrong start. They should have started with polite, formal greetings. The rhythm was off and she couldn’t bring herself back to track.

“She finally sold it." He nodded.

“And you’re doing the roof for the new owner
?” He said nothing, still looking at her with those unfathomable eyes under the brim of a tattered Warriors cap.

She cleared her throat and dug for her voice, the one that did not sound high and girlish and awkward. “You’re a roofer now?”

“A general contractor. The roof needs to be replaced. It leaked when it rained this past week so I’m putting up a new one while the sun’s out."

“Kinda hot for May isn’t it?" The weather. Good, nice, small, generic, and utterly pedestrian. Safe. She felt herself sweating profusely like a pig, wondering why she wore black and couldn’t he put a shirt on, distracted by the breadth of his chest, the tapered waist, the sinews of his arms.

She felt short and ridiculous with her high heels and black dress, not so much a sophisticated Manhattanite, but an insecure, graceless pretender playing dress up, who couldn’t even make a smooth segue.

“Lucky for me. I want to get this done before it rains again.”

“Oh. I’m keeping you from your work. You have a lot to do..." She turned to go, embarrassed and relieved at the same time. “It was nice-“

“Can I offer you some lemonade?”

“What?” she said, somewhat ungraciously. “Uh, no thank you. I should be leaving. I’ve interrupted you and endangered your life,” attempting a blitheness she did not feel, avoiding his eyes.

“I didn’t mean to, I didn‘t know you were..." Her words were spilling out fast as she headed to the front.

“Sera." She stopped, again arrested by her name spoken in a voice at once familiar and new.

“I w
as going to take a break anyway," he said, still unflappably calm.

He strode in front of her and stood, feet slightly apart, hands on his tool belt, tilting his head downward again so that his face was nearly level with hers.

Whenever a picture of him had come unbidden to her, it was this stance that she remembered - Andrew arching his long body to minimize the difference in their height, meeting her eyes with a look that had always made her catch her breath. That same look was still there now, but she knew not to trust it.

She did not know him anymore and, in fact, had never known him. Yet her heart was dangerously tight, all the same.

“Please." He picked up a plastic thermos by a saw horse then turned to the side and extended his right arm outward, palm pointed to the bed of his truck.

After a moment’s hesitation, she started walking to the truck and he followed. Her back was on fire. She felt his eyes on her. She was not ready for this.

She stood by the side of the truck, twirling the wanton rose in her fingers, crossing and uncrossing her arms, unable to be still when a million wings were furiously beating inside her.

She had left Chase in Paris to travel thousands of miles and now that she was here, all she wanted was to run as far away as possible, to be in front of her laptop writing, doing anything else other than have to contain herself in front of him.

He let down the tailgate and dusted it off with a rag. “Here you go."

Not waiting for her to sit, he rummaged in the bed of the truck and found some Styrofoam cups. He poured both of them some lemonade.

She tucked the rose at her waist and accepted a cup. He finished his in one quick gulp then went to the front seat to grab a wrinkled blue T-shirt, which he put on, to her relief. He poured himself another cup and sat opposite her, one leg off, one leg on.