The Spirit Keeper (17 page)

“You’ll have to give Priscilla a ride, too.”

“No problem,” he said.

I took a deep breath “All right, then. I accept.”

Adrian smiled. “Excellent. Find me in the parking lot after school. I’ll be waiting.”

The last week and a half of school passed in a flurry of mounting excitement with the knowledge that it was all about to come to an end.

Classes became one long study session after another in preparation of final exams, and Priscilla and I spent the majority of our free time bogged down in the monotony of flashcards and endless pages of scribbled notes. Exempt from final exams, Adrian started sitting with us at lunch to help us study, but more so that we could be together without my aunt and uncle running interference.

As a result of the whole Katie slap-fest fiasco, the social pecking order had shifted in a very subtle way. Standing up to her hadn’t catapulted me into instant popularity, but at least it had gotten people’s attention. They looked at me differently, and not in a bad way. It’s like I’d been invisible all along, and they were just now starting to see that I was someone worth noticing.

But the one who noticed most was Adrian. He was always opening doors for me, or carrying my books and waiting for me after class—things that no one had ever done for me before. And I liked it! No harm had come from spending time with him, which only proved that Meg and David were wrong. At least about Adrian.

Somehow I succeeded in not thinking about the possible threat that his dad and sister still posed to me; to all of us. And if I did catch myself dwelling on the
what-ifs
, if even for a second, I pushed those thoughts to the deepest, darkest corners of my mind and buried them there.

Denial was golden.

I’d yet to confront Adrian with my questions about his dad’s “personal business” or the fact I now knew the history of our tribe, and he’d volunteered nothing. Maybe I was being naive and irresponsible, but I wanted to enjoy this perfect twilight period of our relationship for as long as it lasted.

After finals on the last day of school, Laura Beth dropped Priscilla and me off at the mall. We wandered around with no real purpose or intention, both of us simply relieved to have an entire summer stretching out before us. But at last our stomachs began to protest with hunger, so we made our way to the food court in search of lunch.

I was standing in line behind Priscilla when a set of warm hands covered my eyes from behind. A deep, smooth voice whispered in my ear, “Guess who?”

My heart leapt in my throat. I grabbed the hands and spun around. “Adrian! Wha-what?”

The excitement of seeing him out of the context of school had rendered me momentarily speechless, and I struggled to find the words for what I wanted to say. I realized I was still holding his hands, and I let go of them.

“Hey,” he said, a cocky smile on his face. “There’s no one here to tell us no.” He took my hands again and let his fingers twine with mine, as though touching like this wasn’t out of the ordinary for us. It definitely was, but maybe it didn’t have to be.

“Are you getting lunch?” Priscilla said to Adrian. “You can sit with us. It’ll be just like the old days.”

The smile fell from Adrian’s face. “I wish I could, but I’ve got something I need to do. I saw you as I was walking by and wanted to stop.”

Priscilla moved forward in line to place her order, and Adrian took that moment to pull me closer to him. He bent his face to mine so that his lips grazed my ear in a very intimate and heart-stopping way.

“When can I see you?” he said. His voice was low in his throat, a little gravely. The sound of it made my legs wobble.

My body had warmed straight through to the core at the sight of him, and my stomach cart-wheeled. I had to use every ounce of self-control not to collapse in a puddle of raging hormones right there on the linoleum floor.

“You’re looking at me right now,” I said. I leaned in closer and could practically feel the energy pulsating between us.

Adrian closed his eyes and let out a slow, frustrated groan. “You know what I mean,” he said. Then he brushed my hair over my shoulder, his fingertips grazing the back of my neck. His voice was a whisper when he spoke again. “I like Priscilla, but I want to spend time with you.
Alone
.”

I glanced over my shoulder at the now non-existent line of people and the expansive woman behind the counter tapping her fingers and waiting to take my order. I broke free from Adrian’s grasp, more to clear my head to think than to order lunch, and hurried forward to choose some arbitrary sandwich from the menu.

Adrian stepped forward, too, and traced lazy circles on the small of my back with his finger. I could hardly focus on the array of condiments in front of me with him hovering, especially with his hands on me. He’d never been so touchy-feely before, and it was making me nervous and dizzy.

As I waited for my order to come up, I looked over to Priscilla at the soda machine filling her cup with ice. Our eyes met, and she stuck out her tongue and crossed her eyes. I burst out laughing, a little too loudly, judging by the way people turned to stare. But the release of nervous energy helped to calm me some. The woman finally handed me my sandwich, and Adrian paid the cashier.

“Tell me when I can meet you,” he prodded, stuffing his wallet into his back pocket. He curled his hand around my arm and held me firmly at his side.

“Meet me where?” I glanced at Priscilla again and could tell by the look on her face she was getting tired of waiting on the sidelines.

“I don’t know. Anywhere.”

My answer came quick. “Tomorrow. I have to work in the morning, but meet me at the creek a little after noon. You know the spot.”

He let go of my arm and rocked back on his heels, a triumphant grin on his face. “That wasn’t so hard now, was it? I’ll be there.”

I watched him walk away, waging an internal debate about whether or not I was being careless. In my gut, I felt I had made one very risky decision. After all, I’d only been alone with Adrian a few times, and never for very long. And that was before I knew the possibility that he might be dangerous existed, however remote it was. I mean, I was ninety-nine-percent sure he would never hurt me. Still, Meg and David would have my hide if they found out we were planning a secret rendezvous.

As soon as we sat down, Priscilla demanded the details. I shrugged. “He wanted to say hi. That’s all.”

“You’re such a horrible liar,” she said. “The two of you looked pretty cozy to me, and judging by the way you were groping each other, you were doing a lot more than saying hi.” She smirked. “I see your relationship has progressed from friendly flirting to all-out PDA.”

I sat up straighter in my chair. “For your information, we were
not
groping each other!” I looked around to see if anyone else had heard my outburst and then lowered my voice. “And I hardly consider holding hands and whispering to each other to be a Public Display of Affection.”

Priscilla’s eyes fell to her sandwich as she deliberately picked at the wrapper, but I could see the smirk still on her face. “Whatever you say.”

There was an awkward moment of silence before I finally relented. “Fine. We were making plans to meet at the creek tomorrow after work.”

Priscilla’s head snapped up and she laughed. “Maybe I
am
a bad influence on you! I think what you meant to say is that you were making plans to go sneaking behind Meg’s and David’s backs. Seriously, dishonesty is a look you don’t wear well. Come clean and get their blessing so that you and Adrian can be a proper couple. The whole school already assumes you are, anyway.”

I shook my head. “No way. They’d flip and lock me in my room until I’m menopausal.” I sighed. “I just wish they would give Adrian a chance, but they don’t even want to get to know him.”

Priscilla stuck a chip in her mouth. “The very fact that he is a teenage boy makes him inherently untrustworthy in their eyes. And make no mistake, Sarah. As sweet as Adrian is, you know as well as I do the one thing on his mind.”

For a split-second I thought Priscilla was implying his interest in me was because of my parents and the trouble they’d brought to the tribe. But of course it had nothing to do with that. That was just me being paranoid. I took a drink of my soda, swallowing down that lingering bit of uncertainty that Adrian might not be as good as he seemed.

“You’re way off base, you know. Adrian isn’t like that.”

“Am I?” Priscilla said. “Just be careful, okay? I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

My tone was joking, but I took her warning to heart. I
did
have to be careful, if only to protect myself. I wasn’t worried about Adrian breaking my heart or making any unwanted moves on me. He could kiss me all he wanted! But that didn’t mean I was out of the woods with his dad or sister.

A wave of worry crashed over me as the need to talk to him and get everything out in the open became even more pressing. I couldn’t avoid it any longer.

Priscilla’s expression softened. “Look, I don’t mean to get all maternal on you, but need I remind you that Adrian is your first real boyfriend?”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I said. “Not officially, anyway.”

Priscilla raised a brow. “Please. Are you waiting for a formal proposal, or something? The point is that you shouldn’t get all carried away with him. You’ve changed, Sarah. It’s not a dramatic change, but I see it.” She reached across the table and patted my hand. “I would hate for you to become the star of some horrible after-school special about teen pregnancy.”

I yanked my hand from underneath hers, but we both exploded in laughter. “I can guarantee you
that
won’t happen! Now finish up. I’m in the mood for a new look.” I flipped my hair over my shoulder in illustration.

Priscilla stopped mid-chew. “A new look? This is, like,
epic
. You haven’t done anything new to your hair since . . .” Her voice trailed off, not wanting to bring up the gum incident with Katie and the Double Ds.

“Don’t remind me,” I said. “But like you said, I’ve changed. And now so must my hair.”

As Priscilla and I waited in the salon for my name to be called, we flipped through the pages of a few magazines so I could get an idea of what I wanted. “I like this one,” I said. “Just above the shoulders with layers.”

Priscilla eyed me with not a little skepticism. “Are you positive that you want to do this?”

I stabbed the picture with my finger. “This one. I’m sure. And I’ll even donate the hair.”

But once I was actually sitting in the chair, I began to have serious doubts. Eighteen inches was a lot of hair to cut off at once. There was nothing I could do about it once the stylist made her first cut, and what if I didn’t like it? All of a sudden I had this incredible urge to rip off the vinyl cape and run far away from the smell of acetone and hair dye.

Priscilla leaned forward and whispered in my ear, “They can smell fear, you know.”

I took a deep breath and gave Priscilla what I hoped was a confident smile. “I can do this.”

The stylist gathered my long hair into a low ponytail. Then she held a flexible measuring tape to my head and counted off exactly eighteen inches. With just a few snips of the scissors, she severed the hair and placed it in a clear plastic bag. Then she handed it to Priscilla for safe-keeping.

“Done,” Priscilla said, rubbing my arm while trying to conceal her giggling. I swatted irritably at her hand, trying not to cry. I was being completely irrational.

The stylist pushed on my shoulders to get me to lie back, and I finally relaxed under the soothing effects of warm water, lavender-scented shampoo, and the complimentary scalp massage. Of course my thoughts drifted to Adrian. And the more I thought about him, the more I started to stress out about our first real opportunity at being alone together.