Steering the Stars (11 page)

       “I know you’re probably discouraged but I don’t want you to take one grade to heart. You have talent.”

       I scoffed.

       “You do,” he insisted. “But I need to see more of
you
in what you write.”

       I bit the inside of my cheek and shrugged—a gesture I couldn’t help. “What—I don’t understand what you mean.”

       “The essay you submitted for the contest?”
       My head bobbed uncertainly. “Uh-huh?”

       “I want more of that,” he said. “That’s the voice I’m looking for, Hannah. The one that got you into Warriner.”

       The essay had been about my life in Oklahoma. Looking back, it seemed juvenile and provincial and I couldn’t believe it had won a scholarship and my position here at Warriner.

       “But…” I shifted my weight awkwardly. “It was boring. There wasn’t even a plot.”

       He said nothing for a second. Then, “The library has several handbooks I think might be helpful. We don’t have practice today so you might want to use the opportunity to check them out...” I watched him open a desk drawer and pull out a blank notepad. He began writing author names and titles. “Do you remember what I said last week about the infinite possibilities inside the human heart?”

       It was fuzzy—something he’d said when someone in class referenced a poem by Lord Byron—but I nodded anyway.

       “In this class,” he continued, “I’m looking for an emphasis on emotion. Whether it’s horror, pain, or love. I want you to make me
feel
something, Hannah.”

       All I could come up with was, “Okay.”

       “The best advice I can give you is to write about the things you know.”

       Sure, that was a fine thing for someone to say.

       But what do you write about if you don’t know anything yet?

****

Silence has its own sound. And that’s the sound—a low, hollow buzz—that filled my ears when I walked into the library that afternoon.

     
 
Mr. Hammond had been right about at least one thing. I needed all the help I could get.

     
 
Forget winning the Pulitzer or getting into a great college. With the way things were going I would be lucky to hang onto my spot at Warriner until the end of the term.

     
 
I could just picture it. I’d be called into the office and seated in front of a panel of stern white-haired men in stiff grey suits. They would take one look at my work and tell me that this whole thing had been a big fat mistake.

     
 
“What are you looking for?”

     
 
I picked my head up and saw a student sitting behind the circulation desk. He must help out in the library for extra credit or something.

     
 
“My teacher suggested I look for these,” I said, giving him the slip of paper with the titles Mr. Hammond had written down earlier.

     
 
It didn’t take long to find the books or to locate an available study carrel in the deserted Maritime History section. There, I unpacked my backpack, plugged my earbuds in, and got to work. Thirty minutes turned into an hour and an hour turned into two. First, I scanned the writing manuals and took notes. When I got tired of that, I did a set of problems for math, or “maths” as they called it here, and answered questions about income elasticity for my economics class.

     
 
The next time I stopped to check the clock on my phone, I was flabbergasted to find that I’d been at the library for almost two and a half hours.

     
 
I opened my mouth in a yawn and rolled my neck in a circle to loosen my gooey brain. That’s when I glimpsed him three carrels over. His head was bent and I couldn’t see much more than curling black hair, but I was certain it was Joel Sinclair even before he looked up, turned two tiger eyes my way and caught me staring.

     
 
I blanched, but he only raised his dark eyebrows before going back to his work. Untucking my hair from behind my ears and forcing myself to breathe through my nose, I tried to do the same.

     
 
Yeah right.

     
 
Even with my eyes forward, I could still make out the shape of Joel. His arm was bent and one hand rested under his jaw, his long index finger tapping slowly against his cheek. He’d taken his jacket off and draped it over the back of his chair. Gone was the ugly school tie. The sleeves of his white shirt were haphazardly rolled up and the top button of the collar was undone. In front of him, a slim silver laptop was open, casting a pale blue light over his face.

     
 
Just then, he curled his hand into a fist and coughed. Once. Twice. I watched his Adam’s apple bob in his throat and that small movement was what snapped me back to reality.
What was I doing
? If Joel Sinclair caught me watching him again, he’d think I was certifiable.

     
 
I turned back to my work. The words swam across the paper. The music playing from my phone whirred in my head making me slightly dizzy, but I hunkered down. For a few minutes it even worked. I took notes and moved to the next section of my economics textbook, but then I felt a tickle—one that had me thinking of crawly spiders and things with wings—skirt over the back of my neck.

     
 
I was one hundred and ten percent positive someone was looking at me. And I knew that someone had to be Joel. No one else was around.

     
 
I blinked.

     
 
I wriggled in my chair.

     
 
I chewed on my bottom lip.

     
 
And when I couldn’t take it any longer, I peeked.

     
 
But Joel wasn’t looking at me. He was hunched forward writing something in a spiral notebook.

     
 
Pull it together, Hannah,
I thought as I lowered my eyes and tried to refocus.

     
 
But there was that tickle. Again.

      
 
I was starting to feel crazy. Maybe I’d been sitting still for too long. Or maybe I was being fried by too much knowledge.

     
 
A ripping sound brought my head up. I glanced around the library and my gaze snagged on something uneven and white dangling over the side of Joel’s desk. It was a piece of notebook paper, and on it he’d written one word.

     
 
Hi.

     
 
For a long moment, I stared at that note without moving or even breathing.

       So fa
r
I’d stared. I’d engaged in some mild stalking. I’d read his story this afternoon in class, yet I hadn’t actually spoken to Joel Sinclair since the first day of school. Not since I hit him in the face with my racquet.

       But now that I was faced with the prospect, I realized I wanted to. BADLY.

       I quickly wrote a response.
Hi.

     
 
Then I thought better of it and added,
How’s your nose?

     
 
Joel smiled. Just barely, but it was enough to make me smile back.

     
 
He held up one finger, signaling me to wait, and bent over his desk.

     
 
I craned to see what he was writing in his notebook, but his shoulders blocked my view.

     
 
When he finally revealed what he’d been working on, I let out a huge breath. It was a drawing of himself with a bow on his nose. In his neat handwriting, he’d captioned it,
Good as new.

      
 
I flipped to the next clean page in my notebook.
So you’re not going to sue me?

     
 
I’m still deciding,
is what he came back with.

       Still aware that we were in a library, I gave a mostly silent laugh. Then I wrote:
Anything I can do to help my case?

     
 
He came back with:
Possibly.

      
This non-conversation was a little bizarre, but I kept it going. The truth was that I didn’t want it to end.
Community service? Grovelling?

     
 
He touched his index finger to his chin and made a show out of thinking.
Well…

     
 
I waited.

     
 
And waited.

     
 
A full minute shivered past before Joel held up another sheet of paper. On it, he’d drawn a second illustration of himself. Only this time, I was with him. It was amazing how with just a few lines, he’d captured me perfectly. There was my messy braid. My wide eyes, pointy chin and the star-shaped silver pendant my dad had given me for my sixteenth birthday. In the picture, Joel and I were sitting at a table eating those horrifyingly large turkey legs they sell at theme parks and medieval fairs.

       Beneath the drawing, it said,
I’m starving. Dinner?

     
 
He had to expect me to say no. I mean, obviously, he thought I’d say no. We didn’t even know each other and, aside from the past five minutes, our only other interaction had ended in blood.

     
 
And what about Owen? Would he really want me going out to eat with another guy?

       On the other hand… Did my maybe—scratch that—my
probably
erstwhile boyfriend’s thoughts on the subject count anymore?

     
 
How did this whole breakup thing work?

     
 
The facts were as follows:

1. I hadn’t heard from Owen Kilgore in weeks.
   
2. The last thing he’d said to me was, “Do whatever you want. I’m sure you will anyway.”
   
3. For all I knew, he could be seeing someone. Jesus, he could be halfway to the altar with a Victoria’s Secret model by now. Though not likely due to age and accessibility.
   
4. If he wanted to keep me in the dark about the status of our relationship… if he wanted to hurt me… if he wanted me to squirm… well, two could play that game, couldn’t they?
   

       It was this last thought combined with the growing restlessness I’d been feeling due to the fact that I’d been in London since August and had barely seen a thing outside school grounds or the apartment that had me scribbling one word into my notebook.

       
Okay.

       Joel raised one eyebrow. At that, my heart spiked like crazy.

       “Dinner then,” he said quietly. It was beyond weird to hear his voice after our silent exchange.

       “All right. Dinner.” I sounded hoarse and scratchy, like I hadn’t said a thing in ten years.

        My mind raced as I started to pack my things. This was actually happening. Joel Sinclair and I were going to dinner like friends, or more than friends, or whatever.

       God, what would we talk about?

       What if he didn’t like me?

       Or, what if he DID like me?

     
 “
What do you feel like?” Joel interrupted my internal freakout.

       “Um…” I bent down to pick up a pencil that had rolled to the back of the cluttered study carrel. “I don’t care. We can do whatever you want.”

       “Are you a vegetarian or vegan or fat-free or carb-free or gluten-free or anything like that?”

     
 
“Nope. When it comes to food, I say go big or go home.” As soon as the words were off my tongue I wanted to take them back.
Go big or go home?
I don’t think I’d ever said that in my entire life.

     
 
If he thought it was weird, he didn’t let on. “There’s this place I know.”

     
 
“Okay.” My fingers finally found the pencil and I looked up.

     
 
Joel had his backpack hooked over his shoulders. He was standing over my study carrel looking down at me with his forehead bunched in concentration. “It’s really fast and we can walk there from the library.”

     
 
I wanted to throw up. Instead, I feigned casualness and nodded my head. “Sure.”