Just like the Halloween party, I saw her the moment she entered, taking her place at the back of my line. She was an invisible force, dragging at something equally hidden inside me. I wondered at the magnetic field we’d managed to create between us, and whether she’d feel the pull of it as she moved nearer. Maybe it was just me who felt it.
She was with the pretty redhead I vaguely recognized from the party, where they’d arrived together – Jackie in her red-hot devil costume and her friend dressed as a wolf – fuzzy ears and bushy tail, requisite skintight leotard … and granny glasses on the end of her nose. Which I didn’t get until a tall, shirtless guy in jeans and a hooded red cape jogged over, picked her up – literally – and carried her on to the dance floor.
Whenever it rained, people elected not to leave campus between classes, and the student-centre Starbucks was besieged. Snaking round two displays and trespassing into the miniscule seating area where every seat was taken, the end of the line trailed down the hallway. The rush showed no sign of letting up. I didn’t have time to be distracted, but I was, watching Jackie and her friend inch closer, one step at a time.
Her friend leaned out of line to check the wait and decided it would be too long. I thought they’d both leave, but she enfolded Jackie in a hug and darted off alone.
Jackie hadn’t noticed me, not that she’d fully focused on anything at all. Her empty gaze drifted over the other patrons or stared out the far window. Her mouth was a flat line, her pensive expression a contrast to the rainy-day smile in my sketchbook. Watching her made my heart ache, as if that organ had become linked to her emotional state, rather than targeting its primary task – keeping me alive. She checked her phone and scrolled through messages or some web page for a minute or two, before resuming her aimless gazing, shuffling forward behind a tall guy who blocked her view of me, for which I was grateful. I knew instinctively that if she looked up and saw me now, she’d turn and head for the exit.
Finally, the guy in front of her gave his order, paid and moved to the pick-up area.
‘Next,’ I said gently, rousing her from her musing.
Her lips parted, but whatever she was about to say dissolved, unsaid. A blush ignited under her skin. I held her eyes – which I noticed, now that I was staring straight into them at close range, were a bit bloodshot, as though she’d been crying recently. Surely Heller hadn’t made her cry? As much of a hard-ass as I knew he could be when necessary, I couldn’t imagine him making this girl cry because she wanted to drop a class.
My heart constricted again, attuned to her. I’d be forever associated with that night in her mind. Nothing would eliminate that fact. I scared her or reminded her – either way, she wanted to escape it. How could I ever blame her?
The girl in line behind her cleared her throat, impatient.
‘Are you ready to order?’ I grounded her with this question, pulling her back to where we were. It’s over. I wished she could read my thoughts. He’s not here. We’re not there.
She gave her order then, her voice a distorted hum that I somehow understood. I printed it on her cup, along with her name, and passed it to Eve. Late Saturday night, it occurred to me that I’d called her Jackie, when I had no cause to know her name, but there was no reason to pretend ignorance of it now.
When I looked up, she was staring at my right hand – still swathed in a light layer of gauze. Most of the blood Saturday night had been his, as I’d told her – but not all of it. Once I got home and cleaned up, I could tell how hard I’d hit him by the split, abraded skin on both sets of knuckles. The injuries were gratifying. Proof that I’d not held back. Little wonder he’d gone down and stayed there.
I rang up her drink and she handed over her card – the one I’d used to swipe her into the dorm. The smiling girl beneath that protective laminate was incongruous with the expressions I’d seen her wear over the past few days.
‘Doing okay today?’ I asked, not recognizing the cryptic meaning until the words were between us. Damn.
‘I’m fine,’ she said, her voice still warbled.
When she took the card and receipt, my fingers grazed over hers of their own volition. She jerked her hand back as if I’d burned her, and I recalled how Saturday night, she’d made sure we didn’t touch when she moved past me into her dorm.
Was it me she feared touching now, or every guy?
I wanted to be the one to relax and unravel her, to show her the gentleness and respect she’d not received at the hands of the would-be ra**st or, frankly, her ex.
I would never be that man for her, and I was all kinds of idiot to hunger for it.
‘Thanks,’ she said, her eyes confused and wary.
The girl behind her leaned too close, stating her order over Jackie’s shoulder, though I’d not asked for it yet. Jackie shied away from the physical contact. Biting back a retort to the impatient twit and taking the order, I reminded myself that I was at work, we were busy as hell, and as much as I wanted to make all of these people disappear, there was no doing it.
Our eyes met once more before she was swallowed by the crowd on the other side of the barista counter, where Eve worked her magic with manic speed and narrow-eyed ire towards anyone who grumbled about the wait time. When Jackie picked up her drink, she left without a backwards glance, and I began to wonder how many times I would lose sight of her, certain it would be the last.
8
Landon
The day started out for shit and went downhill from there. I was halfway to school when the humid morning morphed into an unforecasted thunderstorm. One minute, my clothes felt like warm, damp rags in the clammy air, and the next minute, a mass of clouds rolled in, opened up and dumped rain on my stupid ass the rest of the way to school.