ALLUSIVE AFTERSHOCK (31 page)

“No. I want the truth.”

Court stood and walked
to the other side of the room and I gaped at him. Why was he blaming Max for
starting the rumor? Was it so I would hate Max? “Look, I know you and Max don’t
get along. That’s always been obvious to me, but I wasn’t even aware that you
two knew each other that well until last week when Max told me about the dog. I
just thought he considered you were weird and that was why he always called you
a freak. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? You think if you tell me it
was Max that started that rumor, I will suddenly hate Max, then you would be
rid of him and wouldn’t have to worry about me liking him, right?”

“No!”

“What, then?”

“This is why I didn’t
want to say anything. I knew you would think that.”

“Then tell me how the
rumor started.”

He came back and sat
next to me on the floor in front of the fire. He kept his gaze fixed on the flames
and began. “When we were younger, from as far back as I can remember Max and I
were best friends.”

“You and Max?” I
laughed; a stupid move on my part.

Court glanced at me and
grimaced.

“Sorry. I just have a
hard time picturing you and Max as friends. You’re so different.”

“Are you going to let
me tell the story?”

“Yes. Sorry. Go ahead.”

“As I was saying, Max
and I were best friends. Our mothers knew each other before we were born and
got pregnant around the same time. Max and I are only a couple of months apart
me in November and him in January.”

“January nineteenth.”

“Yeah. Anyway, we had
been best buds ever since I could remember.”

“November what?”

“What?

“November what? What
day in November were you born?”

“Oh, November thirteenth.”

“That’s just next week.
You’ll be eighteen?”

“Yeah, I told you
that.”

“Hmmm … lucky thirteen.”
I smiled. “Okay, go on.”

“We were in fourth
grade. I had just found out that my mother had died in a car accident. I was
sitting on the front stoop when he came walking up the drive, pulling a dog by
a leash. Well, more like yanking the dog. He said he found her and came to show
me. I hadn’t told him about my mom yet. I hadn’t really had a chance. I’d been
sitting there sort of in a daze and when he got closer, he didn’t even look at
me. He had been really excited, you know, and talked on and on about where he
found the dog and how he came right over to show me. I couldn’t even tell him
about my mom because he talked so fast about how it would be
our
dog
because we shared everything.” He paused and sucked in a deep breath of air. “We
even had plans to share you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, we both saw you
at the same time the day you moved in and at the very same instant we said ‘dibs,’
a little game we played all the time. Whoever said ‘dibs’ first, well, you
know. I probably shouldn’t be telling you this. We decided we would both be
your boyfriend.”

I must have had a
horrible look on my face because Court shook his head.

“It wasn’t like that.
We were kids, okay? We figured it would be fine to share you, we shared
everything.” Court smiled briefly then turned serious again.

“I digress. When Max got
to my house, it was shortly after the news. He didn’t notice all the extra
people—neighbors mostly—that were there. He came running up to the steps I was
sitting on, dragging that dog along so hard he was choking the poor thing.

“I told him to ease up
on the leash and he ignored me and tugged it again. I yelled at him to ease up
again but he kept pulling that poor pup. I grabbed the leash from him and told
him he didn’t know how to handle a dog and to let me show him. He called me a
half-breed like my mother and told me he’d show me how he handled a stupid
Miwok. I had never really heard that term before then, didn’t even know what a
half-breed was, but it just sounded bad. My mother was part Miwok. Well, you
know that. He took a swing at me but I ducked and came back swinging and hit
him square in the eye—gave him a shiner that lasted two weeks.”

“Max told me this
story, but I think he left out some of the important parts.”

“Figures. After I
punched him, he ran home crying, but left the dog. She was a puppy then.”

“Shiloh?”

“Yeah.” He looked at me
and then back at the fire. “I got the dog and Max got the girl.”

Max didn’t get
the
girl. Max got all the girls, I thought. “I’m sorry about Shiloh.”

“Me too.” He wiped the
back of his hand under his nose.

“What about the rumor?”

“Well, because of
Shiloh, the fight and the fact I’d said he didn’t know how to handle a dog, he
told some of the kids at school I was crazy and had some weird idea I could
talk to animals and make them do things. Everybody believed him and kept
pestering me to talk to their pets. It soon became a big joke all over school.
It’s funny how things like that catch on and, well, you know how cruel kids can
be. Soon it wasn’t just kids, but their parents too. They called me a freak
because I could make animals do things. I guess I can, but it’s just with
kindness. Animals respond to kindness, that’s all.”

“I never thought you
were a freak.”

“I thought you did.
Everyone else did. That’s why I backed down and didn’t bother to talk to you
that first day you came to school. I saw you standing in line and then when Max
came by and took your hand and you went with him, I figured it was no use. Max
had already convinced you, like everyone else, that I was a crazy freak. It all
happened so fast I hadn’t even had a chance to talk to you yet. He knew how
much I liked you. We’d talked about you that entire first week after you moved
in, trying to decide how we were going to get up the nerve to talk to you and
whether or not we should wait until school started. After we fought, he did
everything he could to keep you from me.”

“I was a little scared
that day, new school and all. I got to know Max the day before school started
when he and his parents came by welcoming us to the neighborhood. That’s why I
went with him that day in the lunchroom. He was the only person I knew.” I wondered
if Court
had
talked to me that day if I would have become best friends
with Max. It’s interesting the way things happen. Which way a butterfly flaps
its wing can change the course of its journey. Was life like that? Could just a
small gesture or a simple hello change the entire path of three people’s lives?
Possibly. I wished Court had said hello to me that day.

“I may have gotten the
punch in but Max’s words stung more than that black eye. He was supposed to be
my best friend. He didn’t even say he was sorry my mother died when he found
out. We never really spoke again after that, at least not pleasantly. I wish I’d
had the guts to talk to you that day before Max snatched you away.”

I stared at the fire,
trying to comprehend the fact that Max had lied or at lease held back most of
the story. All these years, he’d kept this secret from me. Courtland’s words
reverberated over and over in my head. “
He was supposed to be my best friend
.”

Max had betrayed both
of us.

“Okay, now for
something a little less depressing,” Court said, standing and holding out his
hand to me.

I stared at him
blankly.

“Come on, there’s
something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time.”

I frowned, took his
hand and he pulled me up, facing him. “Wipe that frown off your face right
now.”

I tried, not sure what
he had in mind until he placed my left hand on his shoulder and took my right
hand in his left. I grinned as his right hand swung around my waist and we
danced, swaying to silence, but Court didn’t seem to care. He waltzed me around
the room to some song in his head and I giggled the entire time.

We sat on the floor and
ate some more rabbit while I considered asking Court to be sure to kill
something else next time. Rabbit was better than nothing, though, and nothing
is exactly what I’d be eating if I were alone. We decided to take a chance on
the tap water and Court filled our cups to the brim. He said he swallowed some
in the shower and it tasted fine. I hesitated at first as Mr. Montgomery’s
words came back into my head about not drinking the water unless it was boiled
first or bottled. Considering how far into the forest we were, though, the
chances that the water came from anywhere other than that local water tower
Court said he saw were slim. The tap water was probably safe here. 

Courtland sat close to
the fire. I smiled at the twinkling reflection of the firelight dancing on his
face. It made his green eyes sparkle against his tanned skin. His hair was so
dark and the front part hung over his forehead. He truly looked like a picture I’d
once seen in the Pleasant Ridge local museum of an ancient Miwok warrior.
Normally he combed his hair back away from his face, but without any gel or
other products, his hair did its own thing and he kept pushing the longer
strands back behind his ears.

I instantly thought of my
own appearance and ran my fingers through my hair. They got stuck in the back
in what I thought were some nasty knots that nothing short of a brush with huge
bristles would be able to handle. However, the brush had been in the backpack
with the extra clothes and most likely nothing but ashes now.

“Damn.”

“What’s wrong?” His
brows furrowed as alarm showed all over his face.

“My fingers are caught
in my hair and I can’t get the knots out.”

“Here, let me see if I
can help.”

Court scooted behind me, releasing
my fingers from the mess and took my hair in his hands. Using his fingers, he
gently separated the strands until there were no more knots. He continued to
run his fingers through my hair, combing it down my back. He pulled it up into
one hand, placed his other on my shoulder, and kissed the nape of my neck,
sending delightful shivers down my spine.

Adela shivered when I
kissed her neck. I hoped they were good shivers. I wanted to kiss her lips so
badly right then, take her in my arms and run my hands over her soft skin. But
I knew if I started, I might not stop. I was certain I’d lose that battle. I
never imagined in the entire time I’d known Adela Castielle that I would be
sitting here in front of a fireplace with her, kissing the back of her neck,
not to mention what she had let me do earlier. I would remember that for the
rest of my life.

“Are you cold?” I asked.

She turned to me, her
face inches from mine and slid her tongue slowly over her lips. What was she
doing?

“No.”

She leaned toward me
and pressed her lips against mine. I couldn’t stop my reaction and I kissed her
back. This was dangerous.

I was lost in her
embrace. I wanted to keep kissing her. I wanted to stay in that cabin and make
sweet love to her. Reluctantly, I pulled away from the kiss, stared into her
brown eyes. “Are you feeling up to traveling?”

“I think so, as long as
it doesn’t rain on us again.”

“I don’t think there’s
much chance of that today. The sun is bright and there are very few clouds in
the sky—a good thing, since we don’t have jackets anymore.”

We loaded up the
backpack and doused the fire. I almost hated to leave this place. If we didn’t
need to find Adela’s family, I would have suggested we stay, at least until
someone discovered us. I didn’t really think we’d be in trouble for squatting,
especially in a vacated house during a natural disaster, but I would have
risked the time in jail if we did. An unrealistic dream I supposed, living in a
house with Adela as my wife. I shook the thought from my head and gathered up
the backpack, swinging it and the rolled-up sleeping bag tied to the bottom
over my shoulder as we headed out.

The further into the
woods we trekked, the thinner and brisker the air became. My breath huffed in little
puffy clouds in front of my face. The bite of the cold stung clear down into my
lungs with each inhalation. Court stopped and untied the sleeping bag from the
pack. After draping the downy fabric over my shoulders and then his, we continued
walking side by side.

Courtland looked at me
every so often and asked if I was okay. I was barely keeping up, but I always
said yes. Every so often, my legs seemed to have a mind of their own and took slow,
small steps.

Birds chirped all
around us. Court said it was a good sign; the more birds singing the less
chance of rain and predators. I could go another hundred years without seeing
another bear, that was for sure. I didn’t know if he made that up just to make me
feel better or not, but it was another one of those little things Courtland
Reese did that I loved.

After a while, the sky
became more visible through fewer trees and I figured we would be coming out of
the forest soon.

I only coughed once in
a while now. My cold seemed to be disappearing almost as quickly as it came,
but if we stayed out here much longer, I was sure it would come back.

We walked huddled together
under the blanket; a little slower but warmer. Suddenly Court stopped walking.
“What is that?” He pointed to a large bundle on the side of the trail by a
tree.

I shrugged. “It looks
like a body wrapped in a blanket.”

“Yeah, come on.”

“Wait! What if …”

“It’ll be fine. I can
handle an old bum.”

We ran to the bundle
and found a sleeping person with slick, sticky-looking, dirty hair.

“Hey, man. Are you
okay?” Court said, shaking the shoulder of the person.