The Pull of Destiny (52 page)

About time.

I scurried out of the room to
the nearest bathroom, where I locked myself in a stall and sank down on the
toilet seat, trying to collect my racing thoughts.

Luke had just tried to kiss
me.
Again.
And if Principal Herman hadn’t blundered in and ruined
everything, I would have kissed him back.

Cringe.

CHAPTER 21

back to reality

.

Luke’s Point of View

Luke’s Bucket List- Complete
a video game- any video game. Wish on 11.11 pm. Sleep under the stars.

You can’t please everybody.

No matter what I did, I
had
to face the repercussions. Think about it: All I had wanted to achieve with my
PA room abduction was to get CiCi talking to me again, and in the process I had
managed to piss off three very different sets of people. How fucked up was
that?

Let’s start with the obvious
one- Principal Herman.

After throwing the
hugest
tantrum in his office (‘I can’t believe you would pull a stunt like that!’
‘What if there had been a school wide emergency?’ ‘And what the hell were you
doing, lying on top of that girl? Our school doesn’t need a sexual harassment
case!’) Principal Herman saw fit to give me ten detentions and a warning that
if I got into any more trouble at Dalton, it was over. Boy, he was so pissed
that I almost laughed in his face, which was interesting, since I was pissed
off at him, too. The guy basically threw off my groove with CiCi by barging in,
just as I had been about to make my move.

Because, yes, I had been
about to kiss her, dammit. Ever since that day she had blown up at me, kissing
her had constantly been on my mind. Sure, trying to kiss her after I had just
gotten her forgiveness wasn’t too smart on my part, but I wasn’t usually the
sharpest knife in the drawer, especially when it came to timing.

The look on her face when I
was lying on top of her was what had made me throw all my reservations out of
the door. CiCi was all wide-eyed innocence with her soft skin, strawberry
smelling hair and pouty lips and I wanted her so bad. Looking into her
beautiful eyes as I lay on top of her, feeling her heart race through the thin
fabric of my t-shirt- shit, who wouldn’t want to kiss her?

As weird as it was for me to
admit it, I wouldn’t have minded getting expelled if it had meant really
kissing CiCi. I couldn’t ever have her, I knew that. My dad would freak. My
friends would bitch. Our classmates would talk smack behind her back. There was
no way I would do that to her. But just one kiss might be enough to rid me of
the fascination I had with her. When and where that kiss was going to happen
was all up in the air. But it was going to happen, and soon. Because if it
didn’t- I would go insane if I didn’t kiss her.

Next up- Ahmed and Co.

By going through all that
trouble (by trouble, I mean taking over the PA room, which was easier and
quieter than taking candy from a baby) to get CiCi to talk to me again, it
seemed that I’d broken the cardinal rule in our clique that I had no idea
existed- bro’s before ho’s.

Seriously.

Ahmed was the one who hunted
me down after my lecture from Principal Herman, a pissed off expression on his
face, and let me know that my little PA presentation hadn’t gone over well with
him, Wendy and Jake.

“You picked her over us,
dude. I can’t believe you picked
Celsi Sawyer
over your friends! Are you
nuts?” was his parting shot, not waiting to listen to my feeble explanation.

Not that I even had an
explanation, because let’s face it- I owed CiCi that apology big time. So for
Ahmed, Wendy and Jake not to put that into the equation was just plain selfish.
They loved hurting people and making others look small and stupid just for the
hell of it but I was starting to realize that I was different. Or maybe I was making
myself different because I didn’t want to be an asshole anymore. Whatever the
reason, I just hadn’t wanted to live with the guilt of making CiCi cry.

Joanna was also mad at me,
for purely selfish reasons (as usual). She was sitting in the desk next to mine
when I walked into Math class and as soon as I sat down, she let me have it.

“Why did you never do
anything like that for me when we were dating and you messed up?” she hissed
into my ear as I gave her a quizzical look.

“What?”

Joanna tossed her sleek hair
over her shoulder, glaring at me. “
We
argued all the time! And we were
always breaking up! Why’d you never go on the PA to apologize to me?”

I laughed. Couldn’t help it,
the killer look on Joanna’s face was hilarious.

“Because the makeup sex was good,”
I joked. “Jo, you seriously can’t be mad at me because I apologized to Celsi
over the PA-.”

Screech!

Joanna pushed her chair back,
stood up and went to sit next to Wendy. For the rest of the class, the girls
shot the filthiest looks in my direction till I felt like covering my head and
running for shelter.

They weren’t the only people
who were mad at me, though. I swear, people I didn’t even talk to were putting
their two cents in about the situation. The general consensus seemed to be that
I, Luke Astor, had sold them out when I ‘chose teams’. That’s actually what a
perky blonde told me, just as school was out. “You chose Team Celsi over Team
Dalton, and you’re going to pay,” she said, her voice filled with conviction.
“She’s not an Upper East Sider, she’s not one of us. You are. And you just sold
out.”

Obviously, when I told Ahmed,
Wendy, Jake and Denise to suck it if they didn’t like it, a
lot
of
people took it to heart.

Last but not least, dad
wasn’t speaking to me. Let me rephrase that. After yelling me out so badly the
windows of the penthouse shook and Faith covered her ears and started crying,
dad wasn’t speaking to me. He had been so angry to hear about what I had done
and what my punishment for it was (thank you, Principal Big-Mouth Herman) that
he’d said a lot of things that cut me deep.

“You’re an embarrassment to
the Astor name...”

“...
I don't know what we ever did to deserve
you.”

“I wouldn't say you were the
best mistake I ever made. That would be your sister.”

Every time he passed me in
the hallway, (I made a conscious decision not to be alone in a room with him
for fear he’d stab me) he shook his head and muttered, “Ten detentions,” in
disgust.

And when he wanted to be
hurtful, he would make snide comments about me to anyone who’d listen.

It got so annoying that after
two days of dealing with it (dad can be a real baby about stuff) I started
holing up in my room, blasting my iPod and just trying to forget about my
crappy, loveless life. Everybody wanted to be needed, but I never got that vibe
from my dad. He hated me for something that had happened before I was even
born, something that wasn’t even my fault. And all I could do was take it.

***

Come Friday, I’d had enough
of being treated like a stranger in my own house, so I invited CiCi over for an
afternoon of video gaming. Things had been a touch awkward between us ever
since that near kiss and I wanted it to get back to normal again. You see, no
matter how hard CiCi tried to pretend as though nothing had happened, I would
spot her glancing at me every once in a while, an endearingly thoughtful look
on her face. Just that look alone made me wish I could tell her what was on my
mind, how I was starting to feel about her. But I couldn’t go through with it.
CiCi was such an innocent girl; I didn’t want to be the guy who would scar her
for life.

Even though she already
probably thinks you’re just playing with her mind, dumbass.

I sighed to myself, making
CiCi shoot me a concerned look. What to do but try to beat Halo 4?

And beat it we did. It took
four hours, countless replays of difficult missions, several expletive laced
comments (yours truly) and, of course, snacks galore, but we finally beat Halo
4!

As the credits rolled, I
jumped up on my bed and threw my controller on the ground with such force that
the batteries popped out. CiCi started, looking up at me apprehensively from
where she sat cross-legged on the carpeted floor. I guess she had the right to
have that nervous look on her face; I hadn’t said a word for about an hour.

“You okay there?” she asked,
popping a banana chip into her mouth.

“Dude, I’ve been trying to
beat this game for over a year!” I exclaimed, bouncing to my desk and picking
up my list. “I’m not okay, I’m ecstatic!”

Looking like she wanted to
burst out into uncontrollable giggles, CiCi nodded. “Huh.”

I plopped down on the floor
beside her, involuntarily inhaling in the subtle aroma of strawberry
surrounding her.

“And I couldn’t have done it
without you,” I told her, nudging her. “So thanks.”

A pleased expression flickered
over her face as she gave me a sideways look. “Don’t mention it.” She
snickered. “I hope this means you’re going to stop throwing those little
tantrums now.”

“I got caught up in the
moment,” I defended myself. “I didn’t mean to throw my cellphone across the
room like that.”

I also didn’t mean for the
aforementioned cellphone’s screen to break, but that was beside the point.
Anyway, it’s not like I needed a phone right now. My friends wouldn’t be
calling me until they forgot about me ‘dissing’ them or until CiCi and I
stopped being friends. Whichever came first.

Uncapping my pen, I grinned
as my eyes raced down the list to find my latest achieved goal. With a
flourish, I wrote a neat ‘
done
’ next to
‘complete a video game. Any
video game.’
God, it had been so long ago since I wrote that. So much had
happened in that time. Shane’s death, my breakup with Joanna, CiCi...

“I can’t believe you’ve been
skydiving,” CiCi mumbled, reading over my shoulder. “I wouldn’t have the
nerve.”

“You don’t even have time to
think about it,” I told her. “One second, you’re in the plane, the next second,
you’re falling down to earth and you’re like, how the hell did that happen?”

She chuckled softly, still
reading my list. “What’s up with the ones you’ve put question marks after?” she
asked.

“They’re unobtainable,” I
shrugged.

Her forehead furrowed as she
looked up at me. “Unobtainable? Explain, please.”

Stretching my legs out in
front of me and impulsively slinging an arm over CiCi’s shoulder, I said, “My
unobtainable goals are basically things I want to do and stuff I want to happen
that will never take place. Like robbing a bank. I played too much ‘Cops and
Robbers’ when I was a kid. I always wanted to be the bad guy.”

Giggling, CiCi rested her
head on my shoulder, her soft hair tickling my cheek. “Why am I not surprised?”
she said, snuggling closer to me. “I really hope you won’t rob a bank though.
But some of these things you can still do.”

“I don’t know,” I replied,
staring down at the paper. I wanted to believe that I could do everything on
the list, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen. The last 4 things on my list
were things I just didn’t see happening.

Have a wish come true. Say ‘I
love you’ and really mean it. Accept myself for who I am. Fall deeply and madly
in love- helplessly and unconditionally.

I smiled at the last one.
Shane had put that one in, saying that I needed some romance in my life, having
to deal with a girlfriend like Joanna.

“You’re selling yourself
short, here, Luke. I think you probably could achieve these goals if you put
your mind to it.”

I smiled at her and was
rewarded by an adorable smile back that made my heart pound. Her locket brushed
against my shoulder.

“Do you have a picture in
there?” I asked randomly. She nodded, unclasping the chain with one quick
movement.

“I thought I showed it to
you,” she said, opening the locket and handing it to me. A much younger CiCi
smiled up at me, sitting in the arms of a pretty, smiling teen. “I was four
here.” She sighed softly. “My mom was such a baby. She was only 15 when she had
me.”

“Really?” I asked. A question
popped into my head and I looked at CiCi, wondering what the best way to ask
was. “CiCi- what happened with your mom? Like-what’s the whole story there? If
you don’t mind me asking.”