Under Ground (13 page)

"Hi, Thia." He bends over and
deposits the tiniest kiss to the side of my mouth. I hold my
breath. When I don't push him away, he remains there, pulling back
just slightly before his mouth comes claiming mine again. I inhale
sharply through my nose, breathing in the scent of him. My mouth
finally agrees to obey my commands and return his kiss. His lips
are like feathers against mine, making me want to take off, making
me fly.

He pulls away and asks me to close
my eyes. I shake my head at him and he chuckles.

"Are you scared?" he
asks.

"Scared of what?"

"I don't know. Little Red Riding
Hood playing in the woods with the Big Bad Wolf." He lets out a
laugh. "Just close your eyes. I won't bite or blow your house down,
I promise."

I sigh. "Fine." I close my eyes.
"You're hardly a wolf, just so you know. You don't scare me in the
least."

He doesn't reply or even wait a
second before dropping something in my hands. I feel for it right
away. It's rectangular, thick, and made of paper.

"You got me a book?" I ask as I
open my eyes to confirm my guess.

"Not just any book," he replies,
beaming at me.

I take the time to inspect the
cover featuring a bearded man with white hair.
The Empire in the
Pillory
, by Victor Hugo.

I cast Chi a quick glance and my
eyebrows gather in slight confusion. He's smiling as if this is the
most exciting thing he's ever come up with. I bite my upper lip and
swallow a giggle. I have no idea what this is about. I open the
book and read enough to make out some of the content.

"Poems?" I smile. "You brought me
a poetry book?" I'm genuinely happy now. This was really thoughtful
of him.

"Not just any poems, Thia," he
protests. "Hugo was a revolutionary. He wrote those after exiling
himself voluntarily."

"I've never heard of
him."

But he doesn't explain further. "I
think you'll like the poems," he simply continues. "Well, I hope
so." He plays with a curly lock that has fallen over my face and
pushes it behind my ear. His eyes reflect the sun, shining at me,
brightening my world.

"I'll read some tonight." I grin
at him again. I can hardly wait. I really want to know what got Chi
so excited and why he thinks this book is so special.

"Do not show this to your family,"
he adds, suddenly anxious.

"Well, I could never explain where
I got it anyway."

He relaxes upon my reassuring him,
but his first reaction makes me slightly nervous.

"Is this a book I'm not supposed
to have, Chi?" I ask.

"Maybe." His eyebrow arches at me,
daring me to keep it anyway.

"I'm sure whatever Mr. Hugo wrote
won't get me in any more trouble than what I write in my own
journal on a daily basis, Chi." My voice comes out bold and
superior. I'm up to the challenge. It's not any more dangerous than
my being here with him in the first place. This is just a book—a
book of forbidden words—something I am now really eager to read
because I know I'm not allowed to do so.

Chi pulls my head toward him and
kisses my temple. "You are everything I hoped you would be, and
more."

My chest shatters under the sudden
leap of my traitorous swelling heart. "What do you
mean?"

"When I saw you for the first
time..." He pauses. "At the stadium, you know. I was hoping you'd
be like this. Smart. Willing to resist and question their stupid
rules." He smiles at me, his lips lopsided. "You are everything I
expected and hoped you would be."

"What if I hadn't been?" I
ask.

"I would have been terribly
disappointed," he replies, stating it as a simple fact. "I wanted
to kiss you the moment I saw you, Thia." He comes closer to me. "I
desperately wanted to kiss you at the ball, too." Closer still, his
arms now around me, pulling me to him. "And every single day after
that." He leans into me, and his lips find mine, showing me just
how much he means it.

His lips brush my mouth, pressing
with increasing insistence each time they touch me, until we crash
against each other. He's stealing my breath. All my rational
thoughts are gone—flying through the wind blowing my mind. And at
this very moment, I fall, fall for him so hard I come crashing
down, hitting the ground and never wanting to stand back up. My
heart speeds up. I don't know if I'm scared, terrified, or just
plain elated.

When he pulls away, I give him a
tiny smile and try my best to remain calm, though I'm now realizing
that I'm falling in love with him. And I'm waiting, desperate,
wanting nothing more than for him to just kiss me again. I wait. I
wait for him to do so, and when he does, I know that I am lost,
lost for good, because there is no way I can ever turn around now
and find my way back to the boring, stifling existence I used to
live.

Chapter 16

In the
evening,
I read half the book that Chi gave me. I don't
notice it at first, but he has left a note on the first page for
me.

"For you to enjoy and
ponder.

If we should let them destroy while
we wander.

Chi."

The message would be unclear to
anyone not knowing Chi. But unlike last time, when he handed me the
first note, I decipher the meaning hidden behind his words
immediately now. Chi is referring to the authorities. It's a clear
allusion to the content of the book. The rhymes of Victor Hugo are
so beautiful, filling my soul with a desire to change things
irrevocably. It's such a cry for justice, as if he had written
those words just for me, making my heart ache and
concur.

I fall asleep with the book in my
hands, resting over my chest and keeping Chi close to my heart.
Sometime during the night, I wake up in a panic.
How could I let
such an incriminating item lie around so carelessly?
I stash it
away in the box containing my journals.

A week passes by before I get to
see Chi again. I can't raise my mother's suspicion. I've been
pretending to spend so much time at the library after school that
I'm wondering how she hasn't caught on to my lies yet.

The moment I reach the Arch, Chi
asks me if I've read the book. I smile at him and nod.

"Did you like it?" he
asks.

"Yes, Chi. I loved it. Thank
you."

He grabs my hand, pulls me to him,
and holds me tightly against his chest before cupping my face. His
thumbs run up and down my cheeks. They're slightly calloused
against my skin. His lips reach for me delicately and he speaks
against my ear, "Let's get out of here."

I pull back. "And go
where?"

"Let's head down the valley." One
of his eyebrows rises in excitement. He retrieves my hand and
interlaces his fingers with mine.

"The path is over there to the
right," I declare, proud to remember the route I used to take with
Lance.

"How do you know?" Chi
asks.

"My brother showed me."

"So, I don't hold the monopoly of
bringing you to this place, then?" he asks, smiling at
me.

"Sorry to disappoint."

He laughs, his voice filled with
humor, carrying me to a place I've learned to love, a place both
joyful and carefree, a place I only ever enter when I'm with him
and wish I never had to leave.

His fingers remain intertwined
with mine as he leads the way down the path. It's been left
untouched for years. It's hardly visible anymore. The trail is
partly blocked by vines and branches. Chi pushes them out of the
way and waits for me to duck and pass underneath them before he
lets them fly back past us.

"Where are we going?" I
ask.

"Have you been to the
stream?"

"No. Lance always made us stop a
few minutes into the woods."

Chi doesn't add anything. He sends
me a quick smile, simply happy to show me something I haven't seen
yet. He keeps on clearing the way for me. The drop is steep. The
walk back up will be hard and treacherous. Our feet hit the leaves,
kick rocks, break twigs. It's cold out, but not enough to make us
shiver.

When we reach the water, I gasp in
wonder as I catch sight of some animals running away at the sound
of our intrusion. The brook is low, almost non-existent. Chi sits
down, and I crush the leaves underneath me when I settle by him. We
talk while he runs his thumb over the top of my hand, electrifying
me in the process, shooting sensations through my skin.

"What are you doing this weekend?"
he asks out of the blue. It takes me by surprise. He's never wanted
to know before today. "Is there any way you could meet your friend
to study over the weekend? Any chance you may need some private
tutoring?" He waggles his eyebrows at me.

"I..." I pause. I spend almost
every weekend with William and his family. I force myself to accept
their constant insults, their belittling orders, and their
demeaning attitude toward me—the girl they've come to
own.

Chi sends me a glance, reading
right through my silence. "I see." His good mood is gone in a
flash. "Do you have to see him often?"

I don't want to reply. I don't
want him thinking about William and me when I can't come here
because of my obligations. But my sudden stillness and unease speak
for me.

"That often, huh?" His irises turn
a dark shade that I've grown to recognize as a sign of the torment
residing deep inside him but that only rises to the surface when he
gets truly upset.

His jaw is tightly set and his
mouth has turned into a thin line of disgust. William is a subject
I try to avoid, a topic that always threatens to derail the roller
coaster that drives Chi's emotions. I search his eyes for a
connection, but he's avoiding my gaze. He bends over to pick up a
rock and throws it away, hard. I flinch when he does it, but he
doesn't seem to notice.

"I just can't come here when it's
not a school day. I made it clear when we started meeting," I try
to explain. I know he understands, but it doesn't make it any
easier on either of us.

It's already been two months since
I first followed my instincts and threw away all common sense to
meet Chi here. Since then, my feelings have changed and grown
irreversibly while my inner life has been altered beyond
recognition. But this situation between us, the impossibility of
ever really being together, that hasn't changed. And it hurts my
heart so much to think the circumstances will never get any
better.

Chi turns toward me. "The last
thing I want is for our relationship to get you in trouble, or
worse, put you in danger." He stops and sighs. "But I've grown
selfish. I just..." He looks away for a second before closing the
distance between us, his body so close to mine I can feel the heat
radiating through his clothes. "I just wish I could have you for
myself. Without all this." His hand flies around as he says it,
encompassing all these invisible obstacles that keep us apart.
"Without having to share you with
him
." His voice hits a
high cord when he says "him," his tone filled with obvious anguish
and disdain. And just like that, my heart cracks and
breaks.

The pain in his eyes comes to stab
at me, puncturing my soul while he wraps his arms around me. His
lips meet mine, hard, desperate, showing me how difficult it is for
him when I'm not around, how much he hates it when I have to oblige
others and please people who don't even value my
presence.

He pulls away and looks me deep in
the eyes. "Please, tell me that I stand a chance. That one day, you
might choose me, over him."

I inhale sharply. Chi stole my
heart from William the moment I saw him. That day, he turned my
whole world upside down before I even realized what was going on. I
fell for him before I even understood what it meant. I don't know
how he did it exactly. I don't know why I let it happen, really.
But no matter what my feelings may be, I cannot bring myself to let
him hope that this will ever be anything more. I want this. I want
it more than anything I ever dared let myself dream about before.
But the consequences are still holding me back. Chi could face a
death sentence if we were found together, if I agreed to be with
him and let William know about it too. But Chi refuses to see that.
His life and death mean nothing to him. He acts like the outcome is
inconsequential, like his demise is nothing in the larger scale,
and like being with me just outweighs all the risks. No matter what
he might believe, this isn't worth his life and I refuse to be the
cause of his destruction.

I don't answer him. I can't. But
he reads it all in me without me even saying a word. Disappointment
fills his eyes, making me ache so deeply.

"I'll take whatever you're willing
to give, Thia. I know I can't ask for more than this. It's wise of
you to be scared. I understand that."

He says the words to soothe me,
but I know that someday these clandestine meetings won't be enough
for him anymore. I can't blame him. Not when I feel the exact same
way. I stroke his cheek with my thumb. He closes his eyes and
breathes heavily through his nose, a deep sigh of defeat and
acceptance.