Twisted (3 page)

For a few delusional days Gaia had thought Sam might be the one. The one to break her embarrassing record as the only unkissed seventeen-year-old on planet Earth. Maybe even the one to turn sex from hypothesis into reality.
But it wasn't going to happen.

There wasn't going to be any sex. There was never going to be any kissing. Not with Sam. Not ever.

Gaia yanked open the door of her locker, tossed in the book she was carrying, and randomly took out another without bothering to look at it. Then she slammed the door just as hard as she had kicked it.

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, squeezed hard, as if she could squeeze out her unwanted thoughts.

Even though Gaia knew zilch about love, knew less about relationships, and knew even less about psychology, she knew exactly what her girlfriends, if she had any, would tell her.

Find a new guy. Someone to distract you. Someone who cares about you.

Right. No problem.

Unfortunately, it had only taken her seventeen years to find a guy who
didn't
care about her.

NAVIGATION OF HIGH SCHOOL HALL-
ways takes on a whole new
meaning when you're three feet wide
and
mounted on wheels.

Ed Fargo skidded around a corner, narrowly avoided a collision with a janitor, then spun right past a knot of students laughing at some private joke. He threw the chair into hard reverse and did a quick 180 to dodge a stream of band students lugging instruments out a doorway, then he powered through a gap, coasted down a ramp, and took the next corner so hard, he went around
on one wheel.

Fifty feet away, Gaia Moore was just shutting the door of her locker. Ed let the chair coast to a halt as he watched her. Gaia's football shirt was wrinkled, and her socks didn't match. Most of her yellow hair had slipped free of whatever she had been using to hold it in a ponytail. Loose strands hovered around the sculpted planes of her face, and the remaining hair gathered at the back of her head in a heavy, tumbled mass.

She was the most beautiful thing that Ed had ever seen.

He gave the wheels of his chair a sharp push and darted ahead of some slow walkers. Before Gaia could take two steps, Ed was at her side.

“Looking for your next victim?” he asked.

Gaia glanced down, and for a moment the characteristic frown on her insanely kissable lips was replaced by a smile. “Hey, Ed. What's up?”

Ed almost turned around and left. Why should he push it? He could live on that smile for at least a month.

Fearless, he told himself. Be fearless.

“I guess you don't want us to win at basketball this year,” he started, trying to keep the tone light.

Gaia looked puzzled. “What?”

“The guy you went after this morning, Brad Reston,” Ed continued. “He's a starting forward.”

“How did you hear about it?” The frown was back
full force.

“From Darla Rigazzi,” Ed answered. “She's talked you up in every class this morning.”

“Yeah, well, I wish she wouldn't.” She looked away and started up the hallway again, the smooth muscles of her legs stretching under faded jeans.

Ed kept pace for fifty feet Twice he opened his mouth to say something, but he shut it again before a word escaped. There was a distant, distracted look on Gaia's face now. The moment had passed.
He would have to wait.

No, a voice said from the back of his mind. Don't wait. Tell her now. Tell her everything.

“Gaia . . .,” he started.

Something in his tone must have caught Gaia's attention. She stopped in the middle of one long stride and turned to him. Her right eyebrow was raised, and her changing eyes were the blue-gray of the Atlantic fifty miles off the coast. “What's wrong, Ed?”

Ed swallowed. Suddenly he felt like he was back on his skateboard, ready to challenge the bumpy ride down another flight of steps—only the steps in front of him went
down, and down, and down forever.

He swallowed hard and shook his head. “It's not important.”

I love you.

“Nothing at all, really.”

I
want to be with you.

“Just . . . nothing in particular.”

I want you to be with me.

“I'll talk to you after class.”

Gaia stared at him for a moment longer, then nodded. “All right. I'll see you later.” She turned around and walked off quickly, her long legs eating up the distance.

“Perfect,”
Ed whispered to her retreating back.

A perfect pair. She was brave to the point of almost being dangerous, and he was gutless to the point of almost being depressing.

Sometimes
I wonder what I would say if I were ever asked out on a date.

You'd think that since it's never happened to me, I might have had some time in the past seventeen years to formulate the perfect response. You'd think that with all the movies I've seen, I would have at least picked up some cheesy line. Some doe-eyed, swooning acceptance.

But I pretty much stay away from romantic comedies. There's no relationship advice to be had from a Neil LaBute film.

Besides, you can't formulate the perfect response for a situation you can't remotely imagine.

I figure that if it ever does happen (not probable), I'll end up saying something along the lines of “uh” or slight variations thereof.

“Uh . . . uh,” if the guy's a freak.

“Uh . . . huh,” if the guy's a nonfreak.

I wonder what Heather said to Sam when he first asked her out. Probably something disgustingly perfect. Something right out of a movie. Something like, “I was wondering when you'd ask.” Or maybe Heather asked Sam out. And he said something like, “It would be my honor.”

Okay. Stomach now reacting badly. Must think about something else.

What did Heather say when
Ed
asked her out?

Okay. Stomach now severely cramping.

So what happens after the “Uh . . . huh”?

Awkward pauses, I assume. Idiot small talk, sweaty palms (his), dry mouth (also his), bad food. (I imagine dates don't happen at places where they have good food-like Gray's Papaya or Dojo's.)

And I won't even get into what happens after the most likely difficult digestion. What does
the nonfreak expect at that point? Hand holding? Kissing? Groping? Heavy groping? Sex?

Stomach no longer wishes to be a component of body.

Must stop here.

Luckily I won't ever have to deal with any of this. Because no nonfreak will ever ask me out. And no freak will ever get more than the initial grunt.

And with those words, Gaia's seventeen-year streak officially came to an end.

THE SCHEDULE WAS A XEROX.
Maybe a Xerox of a Xerox. Whatever it was, the print was so faint and muddy that David Twain had to squint hard and hold the sheet of paper up to the light just to make out a few words.

He lowered the folded page and looked around him. People were streaming past on all sides. The students at this school were
visibly different
. They moved faster. Talked faster. Dressed like they expected a society photographer to show up at any minute. They were, David thought, probably all brain-dead.

Still, nobody else seemed to be having a hard time finding the right room. Of course, the rest of them had spent
more than eight minutes
in the building.

A bell rang right over his head. The sound of it was so loud that it seemed to jar the fillings in his teeth. David winced and looked up at the clanging bell. That was when he noticed that the number above the door and the room number on the schedule were the same.

A half-dozen students slipped past David as he stood in the doorway. He turned to follow, caught a bare glimpse of movement from the corner of his eye, and the next thing he knew, he was
flying through the air
.

He landed hard on his butt. All at once he bit his tongue, dropped his brand-new books, and let out a sound that reminded him of a small dog that had been kicked. The books skidded twenty feet, letting out a spray of loose papers as they went.

The bell stopped ringing. In the space of seconds the remaining students in the hallway dived into classrooms. David found himself alone.

Almost
.

“Sorry.”

It was a mumbled apology. Not much conviction there.

David looked up to see a tall girl with loose, tangled blond hair standing over him.

“Yeah,” he said. There was a warm, salty taste in his mouth. Blood. And his butt ached from the fall. At the moment those things
didn't matter
.

“You okay?” the girl asked, shoving her hand in her pocket and looking like she'd rather be anywhere but there.

“Yeah,” he said again, reaching back to touch his spine. “I'm fine. Great.”

The girl shook her head. “If you say so.” She offered her hand, even as her face took on an even more sour expression.

Her tousled hair spilled down across her shoulders as she reached to him.

“Thanks.” David took her hand and let her help
him to his feet. The girl's palm was warm. Her fingers were
surprisingly strong
. “What did I run into?”

“Me.”

David blinked. “You knocked me down?”

The blond girl shrugged and released his hand. “I didn't do it on purpose.”

“You must have been moving pretty fast to hit that hard.” David resisted an urge to rub his aches. Instead he offered the hand the girl had just released. “Hi, I'm David Twain.”

The girl glanced over her shoulder at the classroom, then stared at David's fingers as if
she'd never experienced a handshake before.

“Gaia,” she said. “Gaia Moore.” She took his hand in hers and gave it a single quick shake.

David was the one who had fallen, but for some reason the simple introduction was enough to make this girl, this painfully beautiful girl, seem
awkward
.

“Great name,” he said. “Like the Earth goddess.”

“Yeah, well, if you're okay—”

David shook his head. “No,” he said.

Gaia blinked. “What?”

“No,” David repeated. “I'm not okay.” He leaned toward her and lowered his voice to his best thick whisper. “I won't be okay until you agree to go to dinner with me tomorrow night.”

“UH . . . HUH.”

“What?” David asked, his very clear blue eyes narrowing.

He was a male. He was, apparently, a nonfreak. He was not Sam. He got the
affirmative grunt
before Gaia could remind herself of the ramifications.

“I said, uh-huh,” Gaia said evenly, lifting her chin.

“Good,” he said. “There's this place called Cookies & Couscous. It's more like a bakery than a restaurant. You know it?”

Of course she knew it. Any place that had
cookies
in its name and was located within twenty miles of her room automatically went on Gaia's
mental map
.

“On Thompson,” she said.

“Right.” He nodded, and a piece of black hair fell over his forehead. “We can eat some baklava, wash it down with espresso, and worry about having a main course after we're full of dessert.”

For a moment Gaia just looked at him. He was tall. Gangly. Almost sweet looking.
Very not Sam.

“Baklava,” David repeated with a smirk. “Buttery. Flaky. Honey and nuts.”

Gaia nearly smiled. Almost.

This could take her mind off Sam. The kidnappers. The uncle. Heather.

“When?” she said.

He smiled. “Tomorrow? Eight o'clock.”

Gaia nodded almost imperceptibly.

His smile widened. “It's a date.”

And with those words, Gaia's
seventeen-year streak
officially came to an end.

HEATHER GANNIS COULDN'T BELIEVE
what she was about to do, but there was no getting around it. There were too many things that had to be said. Things that couldn't go unsaid much longer. Not without Heather going into a
paranoid frenzy
. And frenzy was not something Heather did well. She liked to be in control. Always.

She looked at her reflection in the scratched bathroom mirror, tossed her glossy brown hair behind her shoulders, took a deep breath, and plunged into the melee that was the post-lunch hall crowd.

Even in the crush of people it only took Heather about five seconds to spot Gaia Moore. And her perfectly tousled blond hair. And her supermodel-tall body. Before she could remind herself of
how Stupid
it was to do this in public, Heather
walked right up to Gaia and grabbed her arm.

Gaia looked completely surprised.

“We have to talk”, Heather said.

Even more surprised. Gaia yanked her arm away. “Doubtful”, she said.

Heather fixed her with a leveling glare as she noticed a few curious bystanders pausing to check out
the latest Gaia-Heather confrontation
. “Bio lab”, Heather said. Then she turned on her heel and made her way to the designated room.

She almost couldn't believe it when Gaia walked in moments later.

Gaia raised her eyebrows and shrugged, tucking her hands into the front pockets of her pants.
“Call me curious,”
she said.

Wanting to remain in charge, Heather slapped her books down on top of one of the big, black tables and rested one hand on her hip. “Who kidnapped Sam?” she asked evenly.