She Speaks to Angels (11 page)

Nodding, she took her glare off me and aimed it at someone in the back row.

***

At lunch, I sat with Molly and waited for Dameon. When I explained the situation to her, I expected that she would follow protocol. I scanned for Jennifer, wanting to apologize again, but I didn’t see her anywhere. When I reached for the apple on my tray Dameon appeared behind me.

“
Ali?” He slipped in beside me, and Molly cleared her throat before speaking.

“
You know, I forgot I totally have to meet Kris. We are supposed to study together for our class quiz. Later.” Standing, she waved and scurried off toward the doors that led outside. Some students preferred lunch on the lawn.

“
So...” I bit the skin on the inside of my mouth.

“
You sure shocked Mrs. Engstrom in class today! She thought she had stumped you. You weren’t even paying attention.”

“
Yeah, well she deserved to be pleasantly surprised. I think she picks on me just because I talked back to her about calling me Ali.”

With a laugh, Dameon brought his hand to his face to cover his mouth. Big, white teeth accentuated his already fine facial features.

“
No really!”

“
I believe you.” He finished with a smile as he took off his leather jacket and laid it over his chair. A sexy pink skin-tight shirt hugged his sculptured chest.

“
Not many men are comfortable enough to wear that color.”

“
I’m mature beyond my years.” He sounded so suave, and yet I felt comfortable with him.

“
And what makes you better than the rest of these guys at Millennium High?” I teased. He seemed like the kind that could take it.

“
I’ve got great stamina.”

“
You do, do you?” I laughed with a flirtatious grin. I bit my apple while Dameon drank his milk, and I wondered why we hadn’t been doing
this
the past three months.
We
felt so natural together. It was almost eerie, in a way.

“
Maybe I’ll get to prove it to you sometime.” I blushed at his remark. I couldn’t be sure if he meant with studies, kissing, or sex.

I’d only almost been with one other guy in high school. Christopher Ryne. He was a senior when I was a sophomore. We were doomed from the start, because what high school graduate wants to still hang out with a junior? Anyway, when I found out he would be going to Stanford University while I was set on Yale, I figured we’d better break up before one of us ended up hurt. We’d never see each other after he graduated, and he’d forget all about me. That summer after his graduation I heard he had hooked up with some girl already. I promised myself my junior year that I would not let my heart break again.

“
Maybe you’re gonna have to.” I didn’t know what I was saying. Thankfully, Jennifer interrupted with a pat on my back. I spun around to face her.

“
I just wanted to say sorry for our argument earlier. I’m sure you’ll tell me when you’re ready. This has got to be hard on you, too.” Her eyes glossed over Dameon.

“
I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have been so...”

“
Secretive?”

“
Yeah. But I promise I’ll talk to you later about all this.”

“
Till then.” Jennifer tightened the purse around her shoulder before stepping away from the table. “And I’m glad to see you’re moving up in the world.”

I blushed. I knew she meant Dameon would be a better catch then drama-filled Kian. I could also still sense a little riff between Jen and me. I’d have to confess something soon to her to keep her happy.

“
What was that all about?” Dameon raised his chin and watched Jennifer head out the doors to the lawn.

“
Our argument earlier.”

“
You kept something from her. Best friends don’t like that.” Soft cheeks inched closer toward me as I watched his plump lips move up and down in slow motion.

“
No, they don’t.” I raked my hand through my hair tie and loosened my hair to dangle around my neck.

“
So, you’re going to tell her...that secret.” His brows shot up as he smiled.

“
Don’t seem to have much of a choice. I don’t want to lose Jennifer. I’ll try to speak to her about it.”

His face grew serious as I felt someone behind me, engulfing me. Craning my neck around, I eyed Kian. Only Kian, without his friends. He just stood there, his steady gaze fixed on Dameon like he was a bull at Pamplona and Dameon was a red cape. Seconds felt like minutes before I turned back around to face my lunch guest. Dameon eyed Kian up and down in this silent war.

The festive mood that Dameon and I had shared vaporized in micro-seconds under the Kian’s shadow. Like a storm cloud, Kian ruined my lunch. Dameon stood his ground, but I never expected him to face off Kian.

“
Guys, what’s going on here?” I looked back and forth between the two as they locked on each other. It felt like they didn’t even hear one word I said. “We don’t need to fight over me...there is enough of me to go around.”

“
Quiet, Ali,” Kian growled, and I wanted to smack him, but Dameon seemed to have me covered. He took a forceful stride forward toward Kian, their two heads almost butted somewhere in the middle. Their eyes were fixed on one another; stances were unrelenting on both sides.

“
Seriously, you guys are acting strange!” I squirmed out from between the two angry figures and stood several feet away. Like opposing polarized magnets they seemed drawn and repelled by each other at the same time. Nothing around them in the lunch room warranted their attention. Not the tray that fell from a student’s hand in line, spilling the entree. Not the crowd growing in number to form a circle around them. Not the bulky P.E. coach standing behind them.

“
Come on, you two; break it up.” The P.E. coach tugged on an arm of each.

“
Fight, fight! Fight, fight!” The crowd cheered in anticipation.

I stepped further backward, uncomfortable with all the testosterone. “Step away from each other and cool off!” Coach yelled at both of them, and when another teacher intervened, they each took one boy and pulled. It took two strong men to pull those two apart, and I just stood there with my mouth agape.

“
What happened?” Mol and Jen rushed up behind me.

“
I don’t know. I was having a nice conversation with Dameon when Kian came up, and the two just fixated on each other.”

“
Maybe Dameon has a thing for bad boys,” Molly teased.

Jennifer responded, “Eew! I didn’t need that mental image in my head.”

“
Come on, you two; stop kidding around. This is serious. I don’t know what happened.”

“
Looks like you’ve got to pick which one you want more.” Molly clarified. “Before one of them kills the other.”

But I didn’t know what it all meant. Did they fight because of me? It sure felt like some deeper underlining issue between them. Heck, so deep it could have gone as far back as centuries! Whatever the reason, I felt more determined than ever to find out what. And if I had to choose between the two of them...well, Dameon won every time.

Then, the bell rang.

Decisions

By
midweek I had grown impatient with the two new men in my life. When I leaned over Dameon’s shoulder by our lockers, Kian would magically appear behind me, and I swear I heard him growl. Then Dameon would hiss. Like two rabid dogs! Whenever I walked with Kian down the hallways, Dameon would somehow get wind of it, and when we sat together at lunch, he would tell me how awful an influence Kian would be on me if I kept hanging out with him.

Then after the lunch bell rang, Kian would sneak up to me before my next class and warn me about Dameon’s charms, that for my own good I had to stay away from him. They stayed at each other’s throats constantly. I saw them scuffle in the halls on Tuesday before fifth period Journalism. But because of the fight they had on Monday they were not allowed to be seen in proximity at lunchtime. At least then I could have some sense of relief that they wouldn’t yet kill each other.

But I felt Kian’s jealousy that I chose Dameon over him to sit with at lunch; his burning eyes beat on me through the glass windows from outside while he was sitting with Krysta and Nathaniel. Even Jennifer and Molly sat with them. Their threesome had become five, and I started to miss hanging with my girls at lunchtime. Why had I been given all this male attention all of a sudden? From two new students at the school? I hadn’t had such luck with men at Millennium High before, and now, all of a sudden I had become the temptress. What had changed?

In English class I had managed to change my front row seat to the back row next to Dameon. Mrs. Engstrom hardly noticed. She still didn’t even call me Ali, as I had requested countless times. I had to sit through hearing the chalkboard-scratching sound of Allison every day. Most of the class paid little attention to the teacher, instead, whispering to their neighbor, eye-balling and pointing to the window, texting. Mrs. Engstrom afforded the class a certain level of leniency she hadn’t usually, because she knew some of the kids knew Tommy Bachelor personally. The principal had had a teacher’s meeting Monday morning before school, I heard, telling all the teachers to go easy on the kids this first week back since the so-called suicide.

I felt grateful. If I hadn’t had Dameon to draw my focus away from the window I probably would feel like a zombie.

“
What did you do over the break?” I batted my lashes at him.

“
Not much.” He kept his sentences short. Since I had known him, I had never heard him say too much. I was supposedly getting to know him better with all this hanging out, and yet I didn’t feel like I knew him at all. He still remained an enigma. “You?”

“
Oh, hanging out with my girlfriends.”

“
Jennifer and Molly?”

“
Yeah,” I said with a beam of pride that he actually took time out of his day to notice me
and
who I hung out with. Then it dawned on me. Who did he hang out with? I had never seen him sit in the cafeteria at lunch before he started sitting with me. I had never seen him in a click. He walked the hallways solo like James Dean.

I tilted my head in his direction, and my whole body leaned toward him as if gravity pulled me there. Stroking my fingers through my hair to pull the strands behind my ear I asked, “Do you hang out with anyone over the weekends?”

“
I’ll be hanging out with you this Saturday,” he said with a silver glint in his eyes.

“
Really?” I grinned mischievously. “I don’t know. My Mom might have a cow; she is real strict.”

I wore pink lipstick. I never wore make-up. But I wanted him to want me as much as I wanted him. He was worth it. Worth the extra ten minutes in front of the mirror each morning, the superficial coloring on my face. I had even added a splash of blush to my cheeks.

“
I’ll stop by ’round six?” His eyes were unreadable.

I shrugged, unsure whether Mom would allow this bold move.

Then the bell rang. Just as he headed out the door I tugged on his shoulder. “Don’t you need my address?”

“
Sure, hand it to me tomorrow.”

“
K...but what about lunch?”

“
I’ve got something I have to do. See you later.” He and his black leather jacket disappeared down the hallway of bobbing heads. He always left just as abruptly as he came into my life.

So at lunch I sat with Kian’s click. Not my first choice, but Jennifer and Molly sat there. They seemed comfortable enough, despite Krysta and the one ongoing rumor that the newbies smoked weed. If Jennifer could sit with them, I certainly could.

“
Nice you could join us.” Kian raked his fingers through his copper-blond hair while his eyes narrowed in a glare. “What, lover boy couldn’t make it today?”

“
Something like that.” I sat beside them on the lawn with my legs crossed.

“
What did you get?” Molly’s nose hovered over my tray of food.

“
Just the meatloaf.”

“
Yum, that stuff is so good!” Mol licked her lips, and Jennifer and I spent several seconds too long staring at her in that you’ve-got-to-be-kidding kind of way. “Well, it is.” She shrugged and dug into her beef tacos.

“
Mom not feeding you at home?” I teased, and Mol just rolled her eyes before returning her undivided attention to her food.

“
So, what has everyone been up to?” I probed. At the very least, I should sound interested in my new friends. Nathaniel didn’t seem so bad. And if Kian wasn’t hell-bent on keeping Dameon and me apart, he might not be so bad either. Krysta was another story altogether.

“
Maybe you’d know if you weren’t so obsessed with Daemon,” Krysta retorted, twisting her lip into a snarl.

“
Well, I’m here now.” I matched her eye-to-eye.

“
Convenient. Are we your consolation prize?” Krysta argued further, and Kian kicked her with an out-stretched heel.

“
Let us just have a civil meal.”

“
Agreed.” Nathaniel nodded, his head lowered over his tray. But his skin still glowed like embers.

I desperately wanted to ask Kian what he meant on the rooftop that day when he said Tommy’s death wasn’t suicide. That a
what
was responsible. I wanted to know how he knew that and what
‘what’
meant. What
danger
meant. And if he was looking out for me, why I never saw him except whenever Dameon was around.