Wake (41 page)

At first I think it’s the tofu that gives Jem a hard time, the way he makes that face, but the potatoes and carrots present the same difficulty. The stew is almost room temperature now because of his slow pace, so heat shouldn’t be an issue.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Jem winces. “It’s just tough to hold it on my tongue for so long.”

“Too spicy?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “Just…a lot of flavor.”

I offer him my soymilk to take the edge off. From the outside we must look like an old couple, chewing long and slow, with up to a minute between bites. Jem’s bites become smaller and smaller as he attempts to compensate for the strong flavor and the amount of time he has to chew. His pace slows to a crawl and I can see he’s struggling to work up the nerve to take each small bite.

I squeeze the hand that holds his spoon. “You don’t have to finish it.”

“I just need a break.” He sets his spoon down and turns his attention to me. “Tell me something.”

“What?”

“Anything. Where did you work when you lived in St. John’s?”

“I had a part-time gig at this little shop called Independent Music.” Jem’s eyes light up like I’ve just revealed some wonderful secret. “We sold CDs and vinyl on the first floor, and the second floor was for instruments and recording equipment—microphones, speakers, and the like. A lot of the regular customers would give the employees free tickets to their shows. The boss called it ‘market research’ to get all the staff to go.”

“And why the hell did you leave?” Independent Music was the perfect job. Jem would have loved it, too.

“Family troubles, mostly. My parents were on the verge of kicking me out, but Frank took me in.”

“Why’d they want to kick you out? You seem pretty responsible.”

I casually wave away the subject. “Cal it a persistent difference of opinion and one major attitude problem.” And that’s all he needs to know.

I steal a piece of potato from Jem’s bowl and he pretends to scowl at me. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Any fascinating student jobs?”

Jem shakes his head. “I temped one summer as a filing clerk for the architecture firm my mom used to work for.”

“In between stints at music camp?”

Jem’s eyes narrow. “Yes,” he answers carefully. “It’s not as dorky as you think.”

“You don’t know what I think.”

“Enlighten me.”

“Try to eat more and I’ll tell you.” I nod to his bowl. Jem grudgingly breaks off a piece of carrot with his spoon and begins to chew at a glacial pace.

“In my experience, the band kids are a pretty wild bunch. Their travel ing competitions sound like one long party.”

Jem points out that he wasn’t a band kid. “Music camp is more politics than party. It’s extremely competitive.”

“Art is vanity.”

He smirks wryly at that.

“So how many people wanted to strangle you when you won that competition to play with the orchestra?”

Jem’s cheeks turn pink. I don’t understand his sense of embarrassment—it’s an accomplishment to be proud of, not to hide.

“well ,” he says slowly. “About five wanted to strangle me—the five that were also in the running for the top spot. And then there were another four cell ists who didn’t qualify to begin with, but who still would have enjoyed dislocating my fingers one by one.”

“But they all smiled and congratulated you, didn’t they?”

“That’s the culture of performers for you.”

“I used to tap dance,” I volunteer. Jem seems to be struggling not to laugh.

“Really?”

“Yeah, but I sucked.”

This time he does laugh. “Is that why you don’t dance in public anymore?”

“I dance in public. I’m just picky about where and with whom.”

“Bit of a snob, are you?” he teases.

“We all have our weaknesses.” I steal a carrot out of his bowl. “I make bad decisions. You throw up.”

“I haven’t all week.”

I give him the eye. “What, you think you’re better than me now?” He snort-laughs at that. I better not ever crack a joke while he’s drinking. The results would be disastrous.

“It’s good to hear you’re feeling better.” I nudge him under the table with my foot. Jem nudges me back.

The waitress comes by to clear away my empty plate. She asks if Jem is finished, even though his bowl still has plenty of food in it. He admits he’s eaten all he can and the waitress offers dessert menus.

Neither of us are hungry enough to eat more.

“Do you drink coffee?” Jem asks. His tone makes me think that he wants me to say yes so we can stay here longer. This is sort of a record for us in terms of comfortable conversation.

“Two mint teas, please,” I tell the server. She leaves with the order and Jem quietly tells me that he really isn’t up to eating or drinking anything else.

“I don’t expect you to finish it. A mouthful or two is enough—it cleanses the pal et. How’s your stomach?”

“Fine. full .”

“A little mint tea helps digestion.”

We’re both too wussy to drink the tea steaming hot, anyway. We end up staying at The Circle for another hour, waiting for the tea to cool and sipping slowly. There are no lulls or gaps in conversation—

everything and nothing is a suitable topic, from his favorite haunts in Ottawa to what I miss about St.

John’s, and what we’d each choose if we could have a superpower.

“Telekinesis,” Jem declares without hesitation.

“You’re a control freak, aren’t you?”

“Whatever,” he says with a laugh. “What about you?”

“Invisibility.”

Jem nods. “Sounds like you.”

“And you say you don’t get me.”

“I don’t.”

“Liar.”

*

The drive home feels even shorter than the drive to Ottawa. Jem even walks me to the door at the end of the night. None-date or not, that’s a new thing for me.

“Thanks for coming out with me,” Jem says. “I had fun.”

“I did too.” My simple admission makes him beam. “This was…nice. Not at all what I was expecting.”

“What were you expecting?” He slips his hands into his pockets and I look him up and down, trying to find the right words to explain what I had in mind before we went out. He dressed nicely, made an actual dinner reservation, treated me politely and asked me about myself; all new things for me, but none of them wholly unpleasant.

I shrug. “I don’t know. That it would blow up in our faces and make school awkward. Or that we would just piss each other off and I’d have to find a place to bury you in pieces.”

Jem chuckles at that. He gets my humor.

“Thanks. This was…different.”

“Better than the hypothetical?”

“Much.”

Jem smiles and I half-turn to put my key in the door. I wonder if I should invite him in. I usually don’t tell guys where I live, never mind bring them home, but this technically wasn’t a date and it’s not like Jem hasn’t been inside my house before.

Warm fingers touch the underside of my chin, turning my head gently. When my face comes around he’s right there, closer than I expected and leaning down to my level. He kisses me, and it is the strangest sensation I’ve felt in a long time. He uses so little pressure that the warmth of his skin is more noticeable than his lips. It’s a chaste kiss, but he lingers over it; not long enough to be gross, but enough to give the impression that he enjoys it.

When Jem pulls away he doesn’t go far. Our foreheads are practically touching, and the hand he used to turn my face toward him is still resting on the side of my neck. With anyone else I would find such a hand placement intensely uncomfortable, but now it’s…oddly tolerable.

“Willa?”

I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. Or do I return the gesture? Some reaction is due, obviously, I just don’t know what.

“Um.” I close my eyes, trying to pick one thought from among the dozen ideas swarming around my head like bees. Jem takes my closed eyes as an invitation and leans in to kiss me again.

There’s heat behind it this time. I don’t know if it’s him leaning in or me leaning back, but soon my shoulders come up against the front door. Jem sighs against me and brushes his thumb along my jaw line in a slow, appreciative way, like he’s studying me. His right hand finds mine and laces our fingers together. My other hand drops my keys. Aw hell, this actually feels good.

And that’s when it hits me that I’m kissing Jem Harper pressed up against the door of my brother’s house. It’s like looking down on myself from above, watching this moment, and wondering where the real me went. Pushed up against the door? What is this, some crappy rom-com?

I wrap my arms around his neck and push him right back. Jem’s hands go to my waist like he’s trying to catch me, and we take two steps back—far enough for his hips to come up against the porch rail. His hands fist around the sides of my sweater, pulling me closer. I expect him to grab my ass, but he doesn’t.

I could get used to this whole gentleman thing.

I’m not sure if it’s the drugs in him or what, but his kisses leave a strange heat behind on my skin when he moves his lips. He sort of pecks when he kisses, closing his lips around mine, drawing his lower lip across my mouth with just a hint of suction before pulling away, tight-lipped, and coming back for another. I take his lower lip between mine before he can pull away and suck on it gently.

He gives a soft sigh and grabs me tighter.

I slowly unwind my arms from around his neck, coming down around his shoulders to his front.

Suddenly Jem breaks away and yanks my right hand off his chest.

“What?” He doesn’t immediately answer. His lips are a little swollen and he’s out of breath. I get it before he has to explain: my hand came close to touching his central line.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No.” Jem looks at me searchingly, waiting, no doubt, for disgust or hesitancy. I twist my hand out of his grip and place it on his waist instead of his chest.

“Maybe we should stop,” he says.

“You want to?”

Jem hesitates over that one, biting his lower lip. He wants to keep going, even if he thinks he should stop. I regret touching his chest now. I shouldn’t have spooked him like that.

“Or we could stop talking and continue,” I offer. And for the first time since I’ve known Jem, he doesn’t argue with my suggestion.

*

Frank is still up when I get inside. He looks me up and down with a suspicious eye and asks how my evening went.

“It was nice. We went to a vegan place in Ottawa.”

“Vegan?” My meat-eating, fish-catching, deer-hunting brother makes the term ‘vegan’ sound like a horrible swear word. “Are you turning vegan?” I can see he’s worried what my cooking would turn into if I did decide to change my diet.

“No, I was just trying something new.”

Frank grunts in a gesture of both suspicion and acceptance, and asks if I’m in for the night. I tell him that I am and excuse myself to take a shower.

When I get upstairs I study myself in the mirror while the water heats up. My lips are a little red, but not enough to explain the strange tingling sensation. It’s lessened since I stopped kissing Jem, but still noticeable. It doesn’t taste like morphine, which feels sort of numbing. He has long since finished chemo, so it shouldn’t burn. I don’t know his other drugs well enough to speculate about them. Those meds are probably for his transplant, and I have no experience in that area.

I step into the shower and stand with my face directly under the spray, holding my breath until I can’t anymore. The water isn’t even that warm yet, but my skin feels hot and sticky, the way it used to after spending time outdoors in summer. I’m too pale to feel so sun-soaked.

I try to imagine what school will be like on Monday, but I can’t. Before we said goodbye, Jem said he wanted to make plans again. I should have said no, but instead I said I knew a place where we could go on Wednesday. It’s a little place that Frank used to take me when I was a kid, but I should have thought things through before I invited Jem there—before I invited him to think that we’re somehow dating.

I’m still drying off when my phone rings and Jem smirks up at me from the screen.

“Did you forget something?”

“No.” I can hear him smiling. “I just wanted to say goodnight.”

I thought we said goodnight on the porch? “Oh. Goodnight then.”

“I had fun tonight.”

“I’m glad.”

“Did you?”

“Yeah, I did.” As weird as it was, no single moment stands out as painful or unpleasant—even if I am panicking a little about seeing him at school on Monday.

“Can I take you out again sometime?”

“We already made plans for Wednesday.”

“Yeah, but I mean—”

“Jem,” I tell him firmly, “you’re doing that thing where you try to monopolize me.”

“Sorry. Wednesday.”

“Sleep well.”

“You too.”

I hang up and set my phone aside. I can’t decide if Jem is cute or just desperately needy. Most people wait longer than thirty minutes to call back after a date. Er, a non-date.

I go to turn out the lights and catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror above my dresser. My face is red.

Shit. I flick the light off so I don’t have to look at myself and crawl under the covers.

I have a feeling that space is going to become an issue between Jem and I, but it doesn’t worry me as much as it used to. We’ve negotiated this already. We’ll deal when it comes up again. Two months ago I would never have thought this of him, but I actually enjoy his company when he loses the sarcastic veneer of bullshit and bitterness. He’s most beautiful when he all ows himself to be.

Sunday When I go downstairs for breakfast I find Frank at the dining room table. I guess he’s skipping a Sunday with Doug for once. He gestures to a pot on the stove and says there’s oatmeal if I want it, but upon inspection it just looks like a clump of burnt oats. I can see why he ordered so much pizza before I moved in.

“Uh, thanks, but I’ll just have cereal.”

“Something wrong with my cooking?”

“No, not at all. I just, you know, want to live.”

I pour myself a bowl of cereal while Frank stubbornly persists in eating his burnt oats.