The Mirrors of Fate (4 page)

Disappointment swooped over her, but she had to plead her case. “Sir, I know they’re pretty hard to get into with my grades, but I think I could do it. I think some of them would accept me since they’re not as demanding as the other ones I showed you before.”

Mr. Lohan was evidently skeptical and did a bad job at hiding it to make her feel better. “Yes, some of the schools you chose this time around may not be as demanding, but sweetie, don’t let these ambiguous requirements on these pamphlets fool you. These schools aren’t supremely just for art. They’re schools that have the whole enchilada and require good grades from many other subjects, not just your C-ish, D-ish art grades that they’d already consider mediocre.”

Mediocre? The word was like poison.

“
I know all that,” she said, frustration lighting a match to her easily-ignitable temper, “but for most of them it says all you need are pretty reasonable grades.”

“
Which you don’t have,” he added.

“
I know they could be better,” she strained to say through her building irritation, “but right now I know where I stand grade-wise in those classes. I know that if I do well in the final exams I can possibly up my grades to a ‘B’ at least.”

He folded his arms across his chest and gave a lengthy sigh. “Are you sure about that, Maria?”

Maria frowned a little. “Y-Yes, I’m pretty sure.”

Mr. Lohan began to organize the pamphlets. She had seen him demonstrate the nervous habit numerous times. “Sweetie, I talked to your teachers. They don’t want to give you any recommendations, and they don’t see you getting anywhere remotely near an ‘A’ for any of your exams. And that’s what you’re going to need, an ‘A’ if you plan on even reaching a C-average for many of your classes, based on where you stand now. You need to receive an exorbitant amount of points in all your exams. It’s quite unlikely.”

Maria felt her heart fall into the pit of her stomach. Oh God, why did he have to say that? Was her math that bad in calculating the possibilities? She was under the impression that if she did well in her final exams the scores would boost her subject grades and her GPA. She had hoped that she could improve her GPA to make up for her low SAT scores. Had she really allowed herself to slack off to the point where everything was irrevocable?

Mr. Lohan had to see the sadness washing into her face, so he softened the tone of his voice.

“
Look, Maria. You’re smart, eloquent, a
great
poet, and you’re one of the most gifted students I think we have at this school. It’s just your particular circumstances that caused all this to happen. If you do the SATs again, maybe they’ll overlook your GPA. Can’t you try for that? You’re good enough to do it.”

But the hopelessness in her fallen shoulders went nowhere.

“
Ah, God, don’t look like that, Maria. You’ve come so far. Not many kids can start their school career as messy as you did and get their grades to where they were in the past. You can overcome this. You’re more amazing than you give yourself credit for.”

And the tender, admiring gaze she could feel from his eyes confirmed his previously unspoken faith.

“
But all the same, I won’t lie to you. Your art grades as they are now aren’t good enough to get you into a good art school, and your GPA isn’t good enough to send you to a great school that has everything. You can’t redo the SATs in June since you haven’t registered, and I know October will be too late because of your particular home situation. All you can rely on is that GPA, but if you’re not going to a better school out of White Crest, then your parents are not going to pay for it. Sweetie, I know you may not want to hear this, but...”

Don’t say it to me.

“
It looks like your only option is the community college down here in White Crest.”

A bullet exploded in her chest and her first reaction was to tremble. The words were a crushing blow. If Maria couldn’t convince her parents that a good university wanted her, they’d drop the idea of furthering her education altogether.

But that was not the worst of her problems. If she stayed in White Crest City she knew what would become of her. She wouldn’t be able to stop the inevitable.

“
I still think you should talk to your father, or at least your mother, who’s more rational. I know your father is a stubborn man, but you need to let him know you don’t want to go through with this stupid arranged marriage backward BS. It’s the modern age, and you just turned eighteen, Maria. Stand up for yourself like a woman should.”

He could say that because he wasn’t her. This man had no idea what he was talking about, and now she was regretting ever using him as the confidant of her greatest problem. Rationalizing with her father was impossible. He was too dogmatic—too hard-headed—too dictatorial—and for lack of any better words, too goddamn ignorant to listen to her. He was raised a stubborn boy and became a stubborn man.

Her adoptive father’s family originally came from India, a country full of hard, no holds barred, no-nonsense workers. He wore his stubbornness like a winter coat to places that even had no winter. When her adoptive father’s family temporarily migrated to Jamaica in the Caribbean when he was in his teens, they carried those same hardworking principles to excel on the island. Their work ethic paid off, and her father was a product of that.

From the moment Maria was adopted in Jamaica, he told her straight away that he was a no-nonsense type of man. When she and her parents left Jamaica a week later for White Crest City, he let her know there was no time for childish games. He beat any trace of the island’s tongue from her and built her around White Crest City until her six-year-old mind forgot everything about her birthplace.

Her father was the kind of man who ruled with an iron whip and made no apologies for it. “Such a pretty brown girl would not go to waste,” she heard him say to her adoptive mother, his ever-smiling Caucasian wife, on that very first drive home. He had specific plans set out for her. He was going to be the one who determined what her life was like, and it did not matter if she carried no blood from his line. She was now a reflection of him. He would determine what her activities were and how she carried herself. He would determine who she spent the rest of her life with.

Choosing a school outside of White Crest City was the only thing she could think of to escape that already determined future. If she could just get accepted to a university with a good-enough reputation, she could convince both her parents to let her go away, and then she’d easily lead them into believing she’d come back after her graduation to go through with his arranged marriage plans. And even if she did eventually come back someday, at least for a short time she would have been out of the place she felt so trapped in. With that much freedom, she could at least try to weave her own path.

“
Can I ask how it went?” Mr. Lohan interrupted Maria’s anguished train of thought. “Did it go on yesterday as planned?”

In their spacious, porcelain-filled, two-story house, yes, it certainly did happen. She had been trying all day not to think about it. Her father had given her an introduction to her three potential husbands. That was why she had missed two days of school. Even the storm damage, which her parents fervently worked to repair on Sunday and Monday, wasn’t enough to stop the meeting from happening. Tuesday was spent going over etiquette and finding a dress, and Wednesday was spent meeting the three possibilities.

She remembered her father introducing them to her, but to say the least, the meeting did not go well. She had the bruise on her scalp from him to prove it.

“
I don’t want to talk about it right now,” Maria said between clenched teeth. She took up the pamphlets and stuffed them back into her bag. She felt defeated; she was defeated.

“
Sweetie, there must be something you can do. I will help you as much as I can and—”

“
I don’t need anyone’s help,” she objected stubbornly as she slung her bag over her shoulder.

“
Would you like me to call your parents for you? Maybe some teachers and I can get together and help.”

“
I said no, Mr. Lohan.”

“
Are you sure, Maria?”

“
Yes sir.”

“
But I’m sure something can be done here. I’m sure I can work up a little bit of magic. Give me a chance and—”

Maria blew up. “No, damn it! I don’t need your help, so stop asking!”

A throat cleared. Their attentions were captured. “Am I interrupting something?” came a voice.

Maria looked toward the door and a pair of deep, translucent green eyes stared directly at her.

“
If I am then I can come back,” the figure standing in the doorway said with a subtle sedation to his words.

“
Oh, Mr. Kristinsson,” Mr. Lohan acknowledged. Quickly and expertly he gathered his composure. “You’re late. Didn’t you get my message about the venue change for our meeting?”

The tall, handsomely austere, broad-shouldered guy averted his gaze from Maria to Mr. Lohan. “Sorry, this school is bigger than my last,” he explained in his unique accent. “However, if you’re busy”—his gaze went back to Maria—“then I’ll come back later like I said.”

“
No, no, I was just finishing up. Oh, where are my manners? I’d like you to meet Maria Jaghai. Maria, this is Alan Kristinsson. Rather late in the school year, but he’s our new student.”

She scarcely noticed the teacher had introduced her, let alone even spoken. All she knew was that time around her stilled. This guy, whoever he was, stared at her with eyes so ridiculously captivating that having become his prisoner, she forgot what it meant to breathe. Owning eyes like those had to be a sin. He was visually stunning with his perfectly symmetrical face and disarrayed blonde hair falling haphazardly down golden brown eyebrows. His immediate presence was undeniably impressive; it seemed even nature had acknowledged that truth as the sunlight shone in from the window and enveloped him in what looked like a divine aura.

“
This is Maria Jaghai,” Mr. Lohan repeated more loudly.

Maria snapped out of her illusory daze with a jerk and was only able to muster up a faint “Hello.”

“
Maria, why don’t you go and we can talk about this a little later?” Mr. Lohan suggested with a stressing lilt.

Maria absently nodded her head in agreement. She headed to the door, disgraced to be walking up to the handsome intruder after the horrible display of anger he undoubtedly witnessed. She let her hair fall in front of her face.

“’
Scuse me,” she mumbled insecurely when her suddenly shrunken five-foot-eight frame came to stand in front of him. But the surpassing six-foot figure didn’t make a sound or move at first. He only stared at her with silent curiosity before finally responding with a “Sure” and stepping to the side so she could escape.

Maria slipped out thankfully into the hallway and let out a deep breath she didn’t know she was holding in. Was that the new student her friends spoke about? The guy from Iceland? She didn’t know he was
that
attractive. And it was just her luck to have made such a terrible first impression. Like a complete idiot she had stared out of awe at him, but all she’d earned was a deserved look of strange curiosity and probably disgust from him.

All the same, his expression did not erase her impression of him.

She tried to bite back a smile but it came nevertheless as she headed down the hall.

“
Impressive,” she found herself exhaling.

* * * * *

CHAPTER TWO

She was exhausted by the time the bell finally rang at the end of the day. The last few periods had been tiring all thanks to her teachers’ unique ability to suck the life out of the room with monotonous speech and lame jokes. Walking the few feet to her locker to put her books away took all the energy she could muster.

Everyone scurried out through the doors urgently and left the school corridor empty within a record matter of minutes. A barbecue and pool party was going on at someone’s house quite soon after, so everyone had somewhere to be.

Except her. With a tiny compact in hand, Maria remained behind to look at herself in the mirror attached to the inside of her locker. When absolutely sure no one was around, she lifted the compact’s mirror to the back of her head, delicately separated her curly hair with her fingers and touched her scalp. The spot where her father pulled her hair was still red and tender. She wondered to herself how quickly it would heal.

Don’t ever embarrass me like that again!
She remembered his thunderous voice and how for that brief moment his anger scared her like nothing ever had before. But Maria knew she no longer cared about pushing his buttons. She tested him often and loved doing it, but this time at the expense of him getting physical. He must have been waiting so long for that moment.

Sighing, Maria tied her hair loosely back in a ponytail and closed her locker. As she made her way down the empty hallway, her ears caught the sound of movement in one of the classrooms ahead. As she walked by the door, it swung open into her. She gasped and whipped her body back in time, narrowly saving her nose by a fraction of an inch. Someone emerged from the room.

“
Oh, wow,” came an apologetic voice. “Did I hit you?”