“Are you tired?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I lied, lingering in the doorway and forcing a yawn. “You need anything?”
“Nope. It’s like a fine hotel here. Queen-sized bed all to myself, cable TV, what more could I ask for?”
“A mint on your pillow?” I suggested.
He laughed. “Good night, Emma.”
“Night, Owen.”
As I was changing into my pajamas, I heard Owen go into the bathroom. I wondered briefly what Owen slept in. A T-shirt and boxers? Just boxers? Nothing at all? I laughed at myself and crawled into bed, my ears trained for every sound in the hall. After a few minutes, I heard the toilet flush and the faucet come on, followed by footsteps padding into my parents’ room, and then the door closing behind him.
It took me forever to fall asleep as my mind tried to release itself from the hold Gray had over it. I imagined what it might be like to date someone else, to fall in love again, or at least fall in like. Develop a crush. Kiss someone new, like Owen had said. How freeing that would be! And that was the funniest part of all—I was free now, free to kiss whomever I wanted, love whomever I chose. But was love with someone else even a choice?
The next morning, I woke earlier than expected, given that I hadn’t slept more than a few hours. It was just ten o’clock when I got out of the shower, so I headed downstairs to make coffee. Grandma had beaten me to it and was sitting at the table reading a book, waiting for the coffee to brew.
“Morning,” she said.
“Morning,” I mumbled, shuffling over to the cabinet and grabbing the largest mug I could find.
“Owen still sleeping?” she said.
“I don’t know. We didn’t sleep in the same room, remember?”
“I like him,” she said. “He makes you laugh. And you need to laugh more.”
I nodded, smiling to myself. “He’s a good guy.”
“He likes you, too.”
“Yeah, I know.” There was the guilt again, the unspoken accusation. I always felt like I was leading Owen on just by being his friend. “Want breakfast?”
“If you’re cooking,” she said.
I grabbed bacon and eggs and a loaf of bread from the fridge and put a skillet on the stove. Grandma poured us coffee and popped bread in the toaster while I whisked up some eggs and cheese for a giant omelet. While the skillet was heating up, I tuned the radio to the jazz station, and my grandma and I navigated around each other in the kitchen as it filled with the aromas of fresh-brewed coffee, melting cheese, and sizzling bacon.
Just as the bacon began puckering in the pan, the doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it,” Grandma said, setting a giant platter of toast onto the table.
Vaguely I heard voices coming from the living room and assumed one of our neighbors must have stopped by. I was removing several bacon slices from the skillet with a spatula and bobbing my head to “Take Five” when my grandma returned to the kitchen wearing a strange saucer-eyed expression.
Behind her was the last person I’d expected to see while standing in my pajamas shimmying to Dave Brubeck on New Year’s Day.
“Hi Emma,” he said.
I stopped dancing, but I was still precariously balancing those slices of bacon in the air while I stared in disbelief at the boy I’d been obsessing over. He looked different than he had at his graduation. He was wearing civilian clothes, trim and clean-cut in a lavender oxford-cloth shirt and jeans. His hair was very short, his face thinner, more angular, so all the glorious planes of it were visible. Those lovely downturned eyes were staring back at me with an emotion I couldn’t place, but whatever it was, it made my heart tighten and my face flush.
I don’t know how much time passed while we stood staring at each other like idiots, but my grandmother had the presence of mind to say something before I burned the rest of the bacon.
“You’re just in time for breakfast,” she said. “Have a seat. You probably don’t get to eat like this in the Coast Guard.”
“No, ma’am,” he said. “It smells like heaven.”
I was still quietly sputtering for breath, but I managed to get all the bacon on a plate without dropping it. “Coffee?” I asked him.
“I’d love some, thanks.” His eyes sparkled when he answered.
Taking a deep breath, I poured him a cup of coffee and set some cream and sugar in front of him, then sat down next to my grandma across from Gray. He hadn’t taken his eyes off me since he’d entered the kitchen, and now he was pouring cream into his mug and smiling at me. I felt like I’d entered some twilight zone. Whatever breach of time and space had occurred, I didn’t want anything to break the spell.
“So,” Grandma said, “what have you been doing? Out saving the world?”
“I’m afraid it’s not that glamorous,” he said. “I mostly get mess duties and deck work until I get through ‘A’ School. But I just got some really good news. I got into an Airman Program months earlier than expected. I head to Clearwater tomorrow to start training.”
“That’s great,” I said. “Congratulations!”
“It’s a little premature to get excited,” he said. “I have four months in Florida and then another four months in North Carolina for rescue swimmer cert, and I’ve heard that’s the really tough part. Less than half the class graduates. Sometimes it’s only one or two students.”
“You’ll definitely graduate,” I said. “I have no doubt.” He gazed at me with a smile full of so much mixed emotion—gratitude, regret, maybe even love—that I wanted to cry. I couldn’t believe he was actually sitting here in my kitchen. And he seemed so at ease, so content just to talk and drink coffee with us that I wondered just what life had been like for him over the past two months.
Even with the weight he’d lost, he was so beautiful and vital-looking, even more so now that he’d regained his self-confidence, that coolness he’d always possessed until he’d broken down last spring. This was Gray Newman again, the boy I’d fallen in love with, not the martyr who had broken up with me on the beach in October. I wondered what had happened between then and now to account for the change. Perhaps he had found his purpose, that elusive thing he’d been searching for. My heart soared, wondering what this could mean for the future of him and me.
It turned out Owen slept in boxers and a T-shirt. At least that’s what he was wearing when he came into the kitchen a minute later.
“Hey,” he said, his eyes looking sleepy but surprised. He hadn’t been expecting Gray. And from Gray’s reaction, Gray certainly hadn’t been expecting Owen.
“Hey,” I said, a little too enthusiastically. This was all too weird. I glanced over at Gray and saw, to my horror, that he was misconstruing everything. His eyes had lost that dancing quality, and his mouth was rigid. I chose this inappropriate moment to find his clenched jaw unnervingly sexy.
“How you doing, man?” Owen asked good-naturedly. “You back from training already?”
“Just on a break,” Gray said. His voice was ice. “I leave tomorrow. In fact, I should get going. I’ve got packing to do.”
“But you only just got here,” I said.
The expression on his face decimated me. All the joy and love and sparkle were gone, replaced in an instant with bitterness and jealousy. “Thanks for the coffee,” he said to my grandma.
My grandmother stood up, hoping to dissuade him. “Are you sure you can’t stay? Emma made a delicious omelet.”
“I’m not hungry,” he said.
Owen moved out of Gray’s way as he stalked toward the door.
“Gray, wait!” I said, following him outside.
He stopped abruptly, and I almost ran into him from behind. Slowly, he turned around, meeting my eyes with a look of betrayal. “What, Emma?”
“Nothing’s going on with Owen.”
“You warned me you weren’t going to wait around for me. I guess I just hoped it might take you a little longer.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You really expect me to think nothing’s going on between you and Owen? When he parades into your kitchen in his boxer shorts?”
“Owen and I are
friends
.”
“Friends.” He spat the word. “We were friends once, too.”
“It’s not the same.”
“God, Emma. Owen?”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s always had a thing for you,” he said, the vein in his forehead throbbing. “It’s so obvious. And of course, he just waited in the wings till I was gone so he could swoop in.”
“It’s not like that!” I said, feeling defensive of Owen and confused and suddenly very angry. “He was with Michelle last year, if you recall, and they only split up a few months ago.”
“Oh, they split up?” he said. “Very convenient. That was right around the time we split up.”
“Gray, you’re being ridiculous.”
He chewed the inside of his lip like he always did when he was nervous or frustrated. “I can’t help it,” he said. “The sight of him in your house . . . it makes me crazy.”
I really couldn’t take the jealous boyfriend act, not from a guy who wasn’t my boyfriend anymore. “You left, you know,” I said. “And Owen stuck around. He’s the one who consoled me after
you
broke my heart.”
He gave me a disbelieving look, which quickly transformed into a menacing glare. “That’s noble of him, Emma,” he said. “So noble, it makes me want to smash his face in!”
“Gray!” I shouted, hoping Owen wasn’t listening at the front door. “What the hell has happened to you?”
He took an enormous breath and started pacing by the side of his Jeep. What
did
he expect? That he could come back, say he changed his mind, and put everything back the way it was? And even if that was what he wanted, he was leaving tomorrow anyway. He couldn’t follow through on any of his promises. The unfairness of it all tore through me, and suddenly I wanted to hurt him the way he had hurt me.
“Owen’s never tried anything with me. In fact, he pushed me away when I kissed him.”
“When you what?”
I braced myself. “A week after you broke up with me, I tried to kiss him. Owen knew I was rebounding, and he did the right thing. He stopped us. You should be thanking him, not trying to smash him to a bloody pulp like some macho dickhead. This isn’t you, Gray.”
“Oh, and like that red stripe in your hair is really you.” My hand went reflexively to my head, trying to erase the crimson stripe. “Who are you trying to be, Emma? You think this makes you look tough? This isn’t you, either.”
“How do you even know who I am anymore? You gave up on me, and now you’re acting all offended that I would even talk to another guy. Isn’t that what you wanted? Isn’t that why you broke up with me, for my own good? Why are you here, Gray? What do you want from me?”
He shook his head violently, like it was taking all of his restraint not to punch his arm through the windshield of his Jeep. “I want you!” he said. “Isn’t it obvious?” His face collapsed, and the anger dissolved until all that was left were his sad hazel eyes misted with tears. “But I lost my chance. I can see that now.”
I shook my head, too. This wasn’t going to work. It couldn’t work. He was too angry and bitter, and I was too confused. I couldn’t let him string me along for another four months here, five months there, until a year had passed and I realized I had stopped living entirely, just waiting for him to come to his senses and return to me. I reached around to the back of my neck and unclasped his scorpion necklace.
“Here,” I said. “I can’t wear this anymore.” The last thing I could be for him now was the antidote to his sting.
He stared at the necklace as if it were a poison dart. “Emma—” His voice caught at the end.
“Just take it, will you?”
Very solemnly, he took the necklace from me, his hand lingering over mine for a few seconds. Even amidst this battle of wills, I could feel the sparks of attraction flickering between us. I pulled my hand away, leaving the necklace dangling from his fingertips.
I looked at his neck. “Where are your dog tags?” I asked. Slowly, he pulled his necklace out of his pocket. My face fell. “You don’t wear them anymore?” I said.
“I do,” he said. “It’s just, I’m superstitious. Whenever I’m flying somewhere, I put them on, and once I’ve arrived safely, I take them off. I know that probably sounds stupid, thinking a necklace could protect me.”
I closed my eyes and tried not to cry. “It doesn’t sound stupid at all,” I whispered. For years, I’d been clinging to my mother’s necklace for just the same reasons.
“Do you want me to stop wearing your Virgo angel?” he asked with an earnestness that made me soften.
How could I ask that of him after what he’d just told me? I shook my head, blinking back tears. Then I took the necklace from him and unclasped it, drawing the two sides over his shoulders. While I fastened it behind his neck, his lips brushed my forehead, feather light. I had to fight the urge not to lift my lips to meet his. I could have melted into his arms just then, forgotten everything. But in my heart, I knew I had to let him go. If I clung too tightly, I’d ruin us both.
When I felt his fingers thread through my hair, examining the red streak perhaps to see if he could grow to love it, I pulled away and ran to the house, stifling tears. Inside awaited a pair of arms to comfort me, but they would never be the right ones.
C
HAPTER
13
W
hen we returned from winter break, the campus was covered in a few inches of snow, but it wasn’t the powdery kind that made everything look soft and pure; it was the kind mixed with frozen rain that stung as it landed on your face, that melted initially and then froze over, creating a layer of ice beneath the new snowfall, making for a treacherous walk to class.
When I walked into Bio that first day back, the buzz of some scandal was palpable, like electricity flying around the room, causing everything in its path to stand on end. I had grown so used to being the fount of all scorn that I assumed this most recent scandal had something to do with me.
When I looked at Jess, her face was a mask, but her eyes were simmering with rage.
“What’s wrong?” I said.
She slammed down a piece of paper in front of me. It was scrawled with one word:
Dyke
.