The Pull of Destiny (14 page)

“What? No, I
was doing research! For- Science class...”

My voice
trailed off as Luke chuckled, a little color returning to his cheeks, which was
good but didn’t stop the fact that he was laughing at my expense. Again. But
this time, I didn’t blame him.
Research for Science class? Ack, so lame
.
We were in the same Science class, for Pete’s sakes! And he knew it.

“It’s okay; you
don’t need to lie to me.” He patted my knee gently and I tensed, looking up at
him just as he was looking down at me.

Green eyes met
hazel and we stared at each other for a long, heart thumping second until I
finally managed to wrench my eyes from his and stare down at my feet, trying to
slow my pounding heart. As though he hadn’t noticed the ‘moment’ we had just
shared (probably he hadn’t, guys can be so unaware of such things) he
continued. “Caring is sharing.”

“That doesn’t
really work,” I said absently. His hand still rested lightly on my knee and I
should have been enjoying how it felt there. But instead of thinking about how
nice it felt sitting right next to Luke and having him touch me (even though to
him, putting a hand on my knee probably didn’t mean a thing) all I could focus
on was how the heat from his hand was blazing through my denim clad knee.

Before I could
stop myself, I pressed my hand firmly against his forehead, brushing aside his
soft hair. His body tightened then relaxed as he gave me a sideways look that I
ignored. Now I knew why he apparently wasn’t feeling the cold like I was.

“Luke, you’re
burning up!” I exclaimed.

He nodded
slightly. “I know. Can you just keep your hand there, please? It feels so
good!”

I didn’t remove
my hand (hey, he asked me not to) but I bit my lip, worried. His forehead was
feverishly hot and he just didn’t look too good at all.

“You should
seriously call someone to come pick you up,’ I told him. “I mean, it’s obvious
that you don’t feel well at all.”

He closed his
eyes. “Maybe I’m just tired,” he said in an unconvincing tone. “I got less than
5 hours sleep last night.’

I gave him a
quick look and determined that he wasn’t lying (even though why anyone would
want to get less than 5 hours sleep escaped me). “You just found out that
you’re sick. You should be at home, resting!”

And getting
more than 5 hours sleep.
I shuddered. Just the thought of that gave me chills. Luke was far braver than
I was. I got cranky if I got less than 7 hours of sleep.

Luke chuckled
lightly. “You might be right,” he replied.

I frowned. “Why
did you even come into school today?”

I had to move
my head closer to hear his mumbled answer, but even then I wasn’t sure I heard
him right. It sounded like he said “Because my dad is an egomaniacal jackass,”
but that couldn’t be right.

“Don’t you have
any medicine, then?” I asked, establishing that he probably didn’t want to go
home. That surprised me. Usually, Luke rarely showed up at school. Maybe his
illness was making him turn over a new leaf.

“Yeah, I do.
Robyn gave me some pills,” he replied and I heaved a sigh of relief.

“Did you take
them?” I asked.

Usually,
Robyn’s migraine pills were fast acting (she really needed them to be, her
headaches attacked without warning) but maybe because of the cause of the
headaches, they were taking longer to act on Luke. I hoped not, though. He
looked like he was really in pain, even though I sensed he was trying to be
brave and shake it off. But I knew from experience (with Robyn) that headaches
couldn’t just be ‘shaken off’ just like that.

Luke shook his
head. “Not yet,” he said, using his hand to shield his eyes against the light
as he opened them. “Ugh, that light hurts. Do they have a dimmer switch in
here?”

“No,” I said,
stifling a laugh. “Look, I’ll go get you some water to drink your meds with,
okay?” I removed my hand from his forehead. “You’re scarily hot, and not in the
good way.”

I got to my
feet, picking up my bag. I was almost at the door when Luke said “Are you
sure?”

Turning to face
him, I gave him a questioning look. “About what?”

He kneaded his
forehead with both hands. “That I’m not scarily hot in the good way?”

I grinned. “I’m
sure.”
Liar.
So shoot me, I was lying! “Just wait right there, okay?
I’ll be right back.”

“Trust me, I’m
not even thinking of going anywhere right now,” Luke replied, leaning back and
closing his eyes again as I scurried out into the hall, heading for my locker.

Once there I
grabbed one of Robyn’s cold compresses (I’m her own personal nurse. My locker
is as well-equipped as a medicine cabinet, if not better) then went to a nearby
water fountain and filled up a paper cup with cold water. Then I rushed back to
the music cubicle, feeling efficient and organized and compassionate and well-
just like Florence Nightingale must have felt when she tended to her patients.
I felt good about myself, using my time to help the needy.

And since I’m
sure that none of Florence nightingale’s patients were as much eye-candy as
Luke was, I felt inclined to believe that in that respect, I was luckier than
her.

I found him
sitting in the same position, playing around with his cell phone. I handed him
the cup, sitting down next to him again. “Drink up,” I instructed.

“God, CiCi,
thanks.” He popped the pills into his mouth, raised the cup in my direction in
some sort of toast and drank deeply.

I pressed the
compress against his forehead and he groaned sexily, even though he obviously
didn’t mean it to be sexy and I was just reading way too much into it, as
usual.

“CiCi, you
gotta tell me something,” he murmured, closing his eyes.

“What?” I
asked, absently brushing his hair back from his brow till I realized what I was
doing. Mortified, I stopped and just held the compress against his forehead.

“Are you an
angel in disguise?”

The question
was so unexpected that I snorted with laughter.

“No, I’m just a
regular girl,” I replied once my giggling fit was over. Luke grinned.

“You can’t be,”
he argued. “No normal girl carries cold compresses with them to school. Not
that I’m not glad you have one, coz it feels
so good
.”

Me, an angel?
Celsi Sawyer from Spanish Harlem, an angel? That was a good one.

I shrugged. “I
carry them because of Robyn,” I explained to him.

He opened his
eyes, looked at me and smiled. “You’re a good friend. And you’d make a good
nurse.”

“Thanks.”

“Am I weirding
you out that I’m here?” he suddenly asked, changing the subject rapidly.

“Well, a little
bit,” I said, deciding to be honest. He was ‘weirding me out’ a lot, actually.
I mean, sure, we’d had our share of run-ins, but that didn’t mean that he could
just show up where I was at and decide to spend his whole lunch break with me.
Which was exactly what he was doing.

“I just wanted
to talk. Hey, I can take over with the compress.”

I took my hand
off just as he put his hand on, our fingers brushing (again!) and giving me a
strange little tingle in my stomach. That wasn’t right. It was nice, but it
wasn’t right.

“Luke, no
offence but- you have friends. Lots of them. Why would you choose to talk to me
over them? That doesn’t make any sense.” I spread my hands in front of me. “I
mean, you barely know me.”

He nodded,
waving a finger in the air. “Good argument. But you’re the only person at this
school who knows about the- aneurysm.”

He whispered
the last word, which I thought was rather cute.

I raised an
eyebrow quizzically. “Really? You haven’t told any of your friends?”
No
wonder he was acting so shady.
“Don’t you think they’d be more help to you
than I am?”

Luke shot me a
cute grin. “I don’t see any of my friends cooling down my forehead.”
Good
point.
“What do you think they’d do if I told them I was sick?” he
continued.

I shrugged
noncommittally. “I have no idea,” I replied, even though I could imagine. People
like Ahmed, Wendy and Joanna weren’t exactly known for their sympathetic
natures.

Luke scooted
closer to me so that my leg was pressing against his.
The concept of
personal space is lost on this one.
Still, it felt nice, which bothered me.

“Yeah you do,”
he said softly. “Ahmed would be a dick about it. Joanna would treat me like
fragile goods. Wendy would tell everyone. I don’t want that. It’s not gonna
help.”

I nodded,
totally understanding where he was coming from. They’d think he was different
because he was sick and they’d treat him differently. That’s why he came to me,
I realized, because at Dalton, I was different.

Luke lowered
his head, staring unblinkingly at his hands, a brooding expression flitting
across his face. “They’re good people, but they wouldn’t understand,” he
continued slowly, sounding as if he’d just grasped that.

I felt sorry
for him. When you knew that your best friends wouldn’t be able to understand
what you were going through, that just wasn’t a good place to be at all. For
months I had hid the truth about Nate and his destructive behavior at home,
until I couldn’t take it anymore and had to confide in Robyn and Shazia. After
telling them, I felt better because I knew they were behind me 100 percent. But
Luke knew that if he confided in his friends, they would distance themselves.

I wished I
could do something to make him feel better, to wipe that sad, dejected look off
his face.

But all I could
say was, “So why’d you come to me?”

Wrinkling his
nose, he looked up at me. “You didn’t look at me weird when I told you
yesterday. You’re not looking at me weird now.” He sighed and looked away into
space. “I know it’s odd that you’re the first person I ran to, especially since
I never talked to you before.”

I nodded.
“Yeah, it kinda is,” I agreed.
Still, there could be a logical reason this
was happening...
Impulsively I asked, “Do you believe in destiny?”

A grin tugged
at the corner of Luke’s mouth as he looked at me, still holding the compress to
his head. He looked considerably better than he had 5 minutes ago.
Maybe I
should
become a nurse.

“Nope. I think
it’s a ploy used by card manufacturers to sell lots of Valentine cards.”

“Oh.” My face
fell
(I felt it).
Scratch that.

As if he knew
what I was thinking (God, I hoped that wasn’t the case) he put a hand on my
knee (again! Wasn’t there a limit to how much touch one could take?) and said,
“I may not believe in destiny and things happening for a reason, but I really
need a friend right now.” He gave me a shy look which almost made me melt into
a fangirly puddle on the floor. “CiCi- can we be friends?”

I nodded.
“Sure.”

How could I say
no to a request as cute as that? It was so elementary school and I loved it!

Luke grinned
widely and
bumped against
me with his t-shirted shoulder. “Thanks,” he whispered.

“No problem,” I whispered
back.

We sat in companionable
silence for several minutes before Luke turned to me. “You ever watch ‘The
Bucket List’?” he asked, randomly enough.

“No.”

He grinned. “Me neither.
But me and my best friend, we both made our own bucket lists two years ago.”

I frowned. “You and
Ahmed?”

And here I was under the
assumption that Ahmed thought he was immortal.

Luke shook his head. “Not
Ahmed. Shane. You knew him, right?”

I nodded wordlessly.

Shane Newton.
I remembered him. He had been Luke’s
best friend; the two were always together, flirting with cute girls in the
hallway. I had cried when I heard that he was dead. He’d been my study buddy
for two weeks before his fatal accident and had been one of the nicer guys at
this school.

“Yeah, well, before his -
accident, he did over half of the things on his list.” He sighed. “I’ve done
about 10 things on mine. I guess I should think about stepping up my game.”

“Stop thinking so morbid,”
I scolded lightly. “You’re not going to- to die!”

Even though the websites I
had been on seemed pretty grim (risks of stroke, coma, brain damage) Luke had
to remain positive.

“There’s a strong chance
that I could,” Luke said blandly. He removed the compress from his forehead,
placing it on top of the piano. “So- if these last two months are my last, I
want to spend them doing the things I always thought I should do, you know?”

“You’re gonna be just
fine,” I said in a chiding tone. “In two months, you’ll be laughing at your
pessimism and I’ll be saying I told you so.”