Tales of the Otherworld (19 page)

“Elena!” he called, grinning as he broke into a jog. “There you are. You’re a hard girl to find.”

Apparently not hard enough.

W
HAT ARE YOU DOING HERE, JASON?” I ASKED
, shooting a quick look over my shoulder and praying Clayton didn’t pick that moment to step from the shadows.

“I should be asking you that.” He walked over to me. “What are you thinking? Jogging in a park at night? When your roommate told me where you were, I thought she was putting me on. Who the hell does crazy stuff like this? It’s not—”

“Normal?” I said.

“I didn’t mean it like that.” He stepped forward, hand rising to brush a stray wisp of hair off my cheek. “You know I didn’t.”

I backpedaled out of his reach. His gaze dropped in that wounded look, as if he was the victim here, the poor besotted guy under the spell of the evil ice bitch.

“I’m not canceling the restraining order,” I said. “So you can tell your mother to stop calling me.”

“Ah, shit. Is she—?” He smacked his palm against the pavilion wall. “Goddamn her! Why does she always do this to me? You were right to get that.”

“Don’t.”

“No, I deserved it. I got carried away. I couldn’t help myself. You weren’t returning my calls. You wouldn’t see me. I got confused—”

“Confused?” I said, nails biting into my palms. “What the hell is confusing about the word
no
?”

The wounded look again. “You don’t have to swear, baby.”

“I am not your
baby.
” I dug my nails in harder. “I have never been
your
baby.
I have never been your
anything.
No, wait…I was your something. Your foster sister.”

“I know that. But I couldn’t help it. You were so—”

“Available? Trapped? I couldn’t slam the door in your face and walk away, because there was no place for me to walk to. You were there, all the time, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. Complain to your mother, and she tells me I’m overreacting. You’re a seventeen-year-old boy; I’m a seventeen-year-old girl. What do I expect? I should be flattered. Well, I’m not seventeen anymore. I wasn’t flattered then. I’m not flattered now. And I want you to get the hell out of my life before I do something that is really
not normal.
”

“You’re upset, baby. I understand that. My mother pisses me off, too, so I don’t blame you one bit.”

At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to haul off and deck him.

But it wouldn’t help. I could knock Jason off his feet and he’d just look up at me with those hurt eyes and say, “I understand why you did that, baby.”

I spun on my heel and strode away. Got about ten feet before his hand closed on my shoulder.

“Let me go,” I said, voice low, back still to him.

“No, Elena. Not until you’ve calmed down.”

I jerked forward, but his grip only tightened, fingers digging into my shoulder. I flung his hand off. His jaw set. I stood my ground. He stepped forward, closing the gap between us.

“You don’t want to do that,” drawled a voice to our left.

I looked to see Clayton in the shadow of a pine tree, arms crossed, as if he’d been there for a while.

“I can handle this,” I said.

My words came out sharper than I intended. I glanced over at him and lifted a finger. He nodded, and stayed where he was.

“Go home, Jason,” I said, “or I’m walking to the nearest phone booth, dialing 911, and seeing how well that restraining order works.”

The perfect threat—calm yet clear—and I’d have been very proud of myself…had Jason heard a single word of it. Before I was half finished, he was striding toward Clayton.

“Who the hell are you?” Jason said.

“An interested party.”

“Interested in what?” Jason swung to face me. “Is this guy with you, Elena?”

“Could be,” Clayton answered before I could. “Or I could be just a fellow jogger, heard the ruckus, and came over to see if I could help. Or maybe I’m not a jogger at all. Maybe I just like hanging out in empty parks, see what kind of sludge crawls out of the pond after dark—” He grinned, teeth flashing. “See what kind of trouble I can get into.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Not a damn thing. Now, I think Elena was talking to you, and I think you’d better start listening.”

Jason stalked over to Clayton and pulled himself up, eye to eye. “Or what?”

Clayton only shrugged. “You’d have to ask her that.”

Jason looked from Clayton to me, face scrunched up in confusion. “Who is this guy?”

“An interested party,” Clayton said.

Jason’s finger shot up, pointing in Clayton’s face. “Don’t you start—”

Clayton grabbed his finger. I tensed, but he only held Jason’s finger, then pushed it slowly down.

“Lift that hand to me again, and you’d better be prepared to use it. Now go on back to Elena. This is her fight, and I’m not making it mine unless you insist.”

Jason looked from me to Clayton. He paused, then stalked off, calling over his shoulder a promise that he’d talk to me later. I wanted to run after him, grab him by the shoulder, the way he’d done to me, swing him around, and set him straight—tell him he
wasn’t
going to talk to me later and why. But I was just happy to see him go. Happy and relieved, and dead-set against doing anything that might interfere with his leaving.

“You want to go get something?”

I wheeled to see Clayton at my shoulder. I hadn’t seen him move from his place by the trees.

“Hmm?” I said.

“You want to go get something? I’m sure I can find a place on the way back.”

I shook my head. “No. Thanks, but I’m really not …” I shrugged.

“Not hungry?”

“Eat? Oh. I thought you meant a drink.”

I should have known he didn’t mean the obvious. He never did.

“We could get a drink, if that’s what you’d like,” he said.

“Definitely not. Doesn’t do a thing for me except put me to sleep. But something to eat would be good.” I forced a smile. “Vent my frustration on a hapless burger.”

“Good. Grab your knapsack and we’ll go.”

We walked down out of the park in silence. Comfortable silence, not that dead-weight quiet that comes from waiting for me to talk about what had happened. He didn’t mention it, and I appreciated that. Like I appreciated the invitation to a late-night snack—something, anything, to keep my mind off Jason and to give me an excuse not to head back to my dorm room, where he could be lying in wait.

Clayton found an all-night diner. We couldn’t see it from Bloor Street—not even the sign—so I assumed he’d been there before, but when we got inside, he looked around, orienting himself the same as I did.

He started toward a table in the back corner, then glanced over his shoulder.

“There okay?” he said, jerking his chin toward the table.

“Perfect.”

We settled into our seats.

“Burgers page three,” he said after a glance through the menu.

“On second thought, I may change my mind. They serve all-day breakfast.” I skimmed through the grease-spattered menu. “I think I might go for pancakes. Weird, I know, but—”

“Have what you like.”

“Comfort food. Does the trick better than alcohol.”

He started to say something, but the server arrived, coffee pot in hand.

“No, thanks,” I said, covering my cup. “Too late for caffeine. I think I’ll have …” I flipped to the back of the menu, then smiled. “Root beer floats. Haven’t had those in years. I’ll take one. And the pancakes and ham steak.”

The server peered over her half-glasses. “With a root beer float?”

I hesitated. Kicked myself for letting a server make me rethink the “appropriateness” of my order, but I did it nonetheless.

“Same here,” Clayton said, smacking down his menu. “Pancakes, ham, and a root beer float.”

The server rolled her eyes and left mumbling about college kids.

“You like root beer floats?” I asked.

“Never had one.”

I stifled a laugh. “Well, I’m not sure how well it’ll go with maple syrup, but we’re about to find out.” I glanced around the diner. The few other customers were all across the room. “I should have said it earlier, but thanks for trying to help back there. At the park. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

“You wanted to handle it yourself. Nothing wrong with that.”

“Hmm, well, as you saw, handling it myself doesn’t seem to be—” I bit off the sentence and looked away. “Anyway, thanks.” I glanced back at him. “You confused him, and that’s probably the best way to get rid of Jason.”

“Not too bright, is he?”

I laughed and eased back in the booth. “No, not too bright, though I’m pretty sure he can’t be as dense as he acts. It’s just an excuse: Pretend he honestly misinterpreted our relationship—or lack of one.”

“So you and he never …”

“Absolutely not. When you’re a foster kid, you can’t get into that.”

I paused, realizing I’d let slip something I preferred to keep to myself. But if he’d overheard any of my conversation with Jason, he already knew I’d been in foster care. So I continued.

“Any relationship Jason thinks we had took place only in his head.”

“But he keeps following you? What’s it been now? Three, four years?”

“Three. And two since I turned eighteen and got the hell away from him and his screwed-up family. As for Jason, I don’t know what his problem is. He doesn’t have a problem getting dates with willing girls. So why me?”

“Because you’re not willing. Buddy of mine is like that. Not like
that
—stalking and shit. But if you put him at a party with ten girls, and nine of them are falling over him, he’ll make a beeline for number ten, spend the night trying to charm her.”

“The thrill of the hunt.”

“I guess so. He likes the challenge. ’Course, if she tells him to get lost, he does.”

“Most guys do. A chase is fine, but if she fights when cornered, they back off.”

Our floats arrived. Clayton waited until the server left.

“Has he ever hurt you?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Not really. He sometimes grabs me, like he did in the park. Leaves bruises, but not the ‘fear for my life’ kind of hurting.”

Clayton’s jaw worked, and he dropped his gaze, but not before I saw a flash of rage there, so intense it startled me. It should have scared me—I know that. But it didn’t.

“That’s bad enough,” he said. “You can’t let him do that or it’ll only get worse.”

My head jerked up. “You think I’m
letting
him—”

“No.” He reached out and, for a second, I thought he was going to put his hand on mine. At the last moment, he plucked a napkin from the dispenser. “I didn’t mean it like that. The problem is, the harder you fight, the harder he’s going to pursue. You can’t give in, and you can’t fight back, so you’re stuck.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

He crumpled the napkin. Then he looked at me. “I could fix this for you. Make sure he doesn’t come back. Not kill him—if he isn’t threatening
your
life, then that isn’t necessary. But I could make damn sure he never wants to see your face again.”

Again, I should have been shocked. Again, I wasn’t. I knew he wasn’t just offering to give Jason a stern talking-to. And the casual mention of killing him, as if this was an option I should keep in mind? That should have sent me bolting for the door.

Instead, I only shook my head. “Thanks, but I still want to try handling it on my own.”

“If you change your mind, you let me know.”

“I will.”

Clayton walked me back to my dorm. Luckily Jason wasn’t there. Nor did he make good on his “promise” to talk to me later. Maybe he was still trying to figure out what Clayton had been threatening in the park.
Or maybe he’d seen something in Clayton’s eyes, the same thing I’d seen later at the restaurant, and decided he didn’t want to find out what he’d been threatening. Either way, I was glad for the respite.

Clayton and I did go to see a movie that weekend. Had a good time, too, though by now I’d come to expect that. Over the next few weeks, we saw a couple more movies, went out for a few meals, and jogged together almost every other day. I knew I should have been concerned about getting him in trouble—socializing with a student—but he was careful and I was careful, and the selfish truth was that I didn’t want to worry about it, didn’t want
him
worrying about it, not if it meant we’d spend less time together.

After that night in the diner, I started opening up. Not that I poured out my guts at his feet; I just didn’t change the topic when conversation turned personal.

He gave as good as he got. Before that night in the diner ended, I’d found out that Clayton understood my situation better than I could have imagined, having been orphaned himself when he was only a couple of years older than I’d been.

Like me, Clayton had no biological family…or none that he knew of. Unlike me, though, he’d found a home, with a guardian that sounded like everything I’d ever dreamed a foster parent could be, plus a close extended family. I suppose I could have felt jealous about that, but instead it reaffirmed my own hopes that just because you didn’t have blood relatives didn’t mean you couldn’t, someday, have a normal life with a family of your own.

As October drew to a close, I became increasingly aware of Clayton’s imminent return to New York. We hadn’t discussed that. Maybe there was nothing to discuss. His term would come to an end, he’d hand me my final paycheck with a “Nice to know you,” and that’d be it. Maybe if I expected otherwise, that was my mistake.

I held out as long as I could, until exactly two weeks before he was due to leave. Then I asked whether I could use his office computer to
rework my résumé. He mumbled something, but when I tried to get an intelligible answer, he changed the topic.

Two days later, I showed up at work to find the office empty. With no note. For a few seconds, I stood by the desk in shock, wondering if he was already gone. Silly, I know, but he was always there when I arrived for my shift. If he couldn’t be, he left a note, telling me he was gone—as if I couldn’t see that for myself—and telling me to wait—as if I might take his absence as an opportunity to snag a day off.