Caleb + Kate (15 page)

“Kate?” I realize Katherine has been talking. “Oh.”

“What?” I say, after a too-long delay. I force myself not to turn and look at Caleb, but I can't help it. I turn nonchalantly and see the back of him walking away. He doesn't turn back. “Sorry, what did you say?”

I look beside me, but Katherine isn't there. She's stopped a few feet behind, and I hadn't even noticed. She stares at me with a mixture of a smile and dismay. “So it's like that, is it?”

“What are you talking about?” I use my best innocent tone, washing my expression clean of any guilt.

“I wondered. But then everyone said you weren't interested in him. But that was an I'm-falling-helplessly-in-love look if I've ever seen one—and I'm not sure I have until just now.”

I take her arm and pull her along toward class. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

Katherine laughs. “You know exactly what I'm talking about.”

I want to deny everything—because what
is
there to deny or not deny? Caleb and I spent one night and one afternoon and evening together. We've not confessed any feelings. There is just time shared—and for me, a connection that is terrifying. What if I dared to believe in the fairy tale? There's something about Caleb. He could shatter my heart.

Katherine stands with her hands on her hips simply daring me to deny it.

“You like him. You like him a lot.”

I look around, but no one is overhearing us. “You cannot say anything to anyone.”

“I can keep a secret. I kept lots of secrets.”

I stare at her curiously.

“I can't tell you any of them because I keep secrets.”

That makes me smile. “Okay, but there's really no secret to keep. I just don't want this going around.”

“I want to know everything,” she says with a smile that makes her cheeks pink. “I know I've been wrapped up in my own drama with Blake for a long time, but that guy is hot and looks like bad news. He's perfect for you—for right now anyway.”

I bite my lip, wondering how to describe Caleb.

“He's not like that. He's just . . . different.”

Katherine shakes her head, holding her forehead. “Oh boy. You've got it bad. What are we going to do about this?”

“What do you mean?”

“You and Caleb are like oil and water. People are going to freak out. Parents will come talk to your parents. This is serious.”

“Kath, it's nothing. A little crush on my part, that's it,” I say, clearly annoyed. What people think about us is the least of my concerns. Right now, I want to know why he ignored me. I don't know how to act around him at school. What is this between us? Is it friendship? Something more? Or is it less than I thought?

He arrives at class after I'm in my seat. His seat is a few rows ahead of mine and he slides into his place with only a few seconds before class begins. He doesn't raise his eyes toward me even once.

He's really a stranger
, I remind myself as I study the back of his neck. His skin there is even darker, probably from days spent out on the water, and I realize his skin isn't just brown, but a sort of deep bronze. I stare at the line of his thick black hair against his neck. This is all driving me a little mad.

There's something about Caleb that feels as if I've known him for years. Except I haven't. But from that first night at prom, or maybe even when I saw him leaving the parking lot, I have a sense that I know him.

What should I do about it?

Class ends and I realize that I heard nothing. Didn't take notes; I don't even know what the assignment is. Caleb scoops up his books and slides them into his backpack. Rachelle sits on the edge of his desk and is asking him something, but I can't hear because everyone else is talking and leaving class.

He moves away fast, leaving Rachelle sitting on his desk. I have to hurry to catch up with him.

“Hey,” I say.

He glances at me.

“Hey.” He keeps walking.

“How do you like Gaitlin?”

“It's fine.”

“Is it very different from what you're used to?”

He shrugs and looks distracted.

“Caleb. What's wrong?” I ask, taking his arm to stop him.

He stares at me, pausing, uncertain. Something's up for sure. “Please. Did something happen? Did I do something?”

“It doesn't matter, Kate. This thing . . . you and I . . . we're just better off living our own lives. We can't really offer each other anything.”

My mouth opens, and that intense attraction pulsing through me switches to a fear. He's pulling away. I shouldn't care.

“We can't really offer each other anything.” I repeat his statement. People are passing us, glancing our way again, but I don't care. “Why would you say that?”

“It's true, wouldn't you say? What do you want from me? What do you want from this?” He motions from me to him and back.

“Friendship, I suppose. We go to school together, we work together—”

“You don't work there. You volunteer or hang out 'cause you're bored.”

“I'm not bored. I'm overwhelmed with everything I'm expected to do.”

“You're bored with everything you do. You're basically the same as everyone here, but worse. You have no passion, no direction—you don't even know what you like, yet you come off like you have it all together.”

I take a step back. “I'm not like everyone here.”

“Whatever you say.” He stares at me with a cold, empty expression. “I just think it's best if we stay away from each other.”

He hesitates slightly, or maybe I imagined it, and then he walks away.

Chapter Nine

Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Twelfth Night
(Act 1, Scene 5)

CALEB

My hands push into the gloves, I touch the punching bag once and hit play on my iPod, sending a metal band blaring through my ears.

I hit the bag, jabbing right, then left. I push the power through my shoulders and arms into each impact. Before long, the sweat gathers on my forehead and my muscles ache, but still I hit the bag.

Some people don't fight with guilt like I do. At times, I wish I could be like Finn or half the guys I knew in Hawaii. They could lie, cheat, drop the same lines to a dozen girls, and they never seemed remorseful, never cared at all.

I've always been one of those guilt-ridden kids. As a boy, I stomped on a line of ants and then cried for ten minutes, thinking about how they were just out on a nice afternoon, gathering food for their family, until my shoe dropped from the sky like a nuclear bomb. It's probably my mother's fault. She ingrained in me that guilt was God's way of telling me something.

But God isn't telling me anything about Kate. I haven't done anything to be guilty about. What's wrong with staying away from someone?

I step back from the bag and pull off my T-shirt, which is soaked and stuck to my back. I stretch my arms out and face the bag again. Images keep coming that I force to the surface and then pound out.

Today at school, Ted walked by and said loudly to his sidekick, “Can't go, man. I'm taking Kate out Friday night.”

I picture Ted as the punching bag. Anger management, that's what this is. My muscles ache as I punch again, harder, faster, feign, jab, hit, right, left, step back, feign left, upper cut, left, and round-about kick.

Now I see Kate at the hotel. As I was fixing a sprinkler along a row of hedges, she walked by, didn't see me as she was giving an elderly couple a tour of the grounds. The couple was complaining. No matter what Kate did or said, they had something to say about it.

The back of the old lady's dress was folded up, revealing her thick pantyhose—an alarming sight. My thought was,
Ha, serves
the old grouch right
. When Kate noticed it, she carefully reached over just as the woman said, “At the Hilton . . .” and smoothed out the dress. The old lady was completely unaware. The couple left their empty drinks on a stone ledge and Kate returned after their tour to clean up the mess. Traits of kindness. Proof that she wasn't the stereotype I wanted to put her in.

Harder and harder, I pound the bag, willing the images of Kate out of my head. She won't go, I can't get her out.

Words whisper through the pounding and the music. I should pay attention to them, not just rely on my own plan. I want what God wants, eventually.

I want to hate her. Darn if my faith doesn't mess me up sometimes.

KATE

A week and a half passes, and Caleb continues to walk by as if he barely knows me. At the hotel he treats me the same. When I've come up with some random reason to talk to him, he's treated me politely like he would any other person at the inn.

I've given up hoping he'll text me. Very soon, I'll confront him. As soon as I have the right opportunity—and the guts.

I want to say so many things to him. I want to tell him I'm sorry about Ted and for wealthy people everywhere who act like him. But how do I actually say something like that? I want to apologize for being awkward. Trying to blend him with my normal life is strange, unsettling, uncharted water for me. Even dealing with whatever it is I feel for him is strange and confusing.

When I've seen Caleb, he's mostly been walking around alone, looking completely comfortable and at ease as always. I hear through the vine that at lunch he has a group that's formed around him—not that brought him in, but was created by mutineers leaving and coming to sit with him. He's teaching a group of them how to surf when the weather warms up, and they're planning a trip to Hawaii. A jab of jealousy strikes through me every time someone brings this up. There's an ownership like he somehow belongs to me, but of course, he doesn't. I suddenly understand better how people go crazy when they're in love. I'm not even in love and my emotions and thoughts are seriously out of control.

We see one another every fourth period. Caleb is usually there first and I have to pass him. I glance at him every time, but he doesn't look at me at all. He leaves before I'm out of my seat.

Today, Mr. Beemer walks to my chair and bends down. “Would you mind partnering with our new student, since you were his escort and seem to know him the best?”

I open my mouth, pause, searching for a valid excuse to turn this down, but perhaps this is my opportunity. “Sure,” I say, and Mr. Beemer acts pleased.

“It's project time,” Mr. Beemer announces as the social studies class begins. Moans echo around the room, but I'm excited about it.

“For this semester's project, you and your partner will produce a study or report about one of the subjects you'll find on the paper I'm passing around now. I'll give you the rest of class together to decide on a subject or ask any questions to accomplish the project goal.”

I stare at the project instructions and the subjects, but I'm distracted knowing Mr. Beemer will announce our partners soon. I wonder what Caleb will think when he finds out I am his partner.

“Caleb Kalani and Kate Monrovi.”

“That's convenient,” I hear Bryan Fischer—Ted's best friend— whisper with a glare toward me.

I frown back with a “What?” expression.

The class breaks into partners, and I wait a moment in my chair for Caleb to turn in his desk. I will not be the one to go to him, I decide. Finally he looks up from his paper and rises from his seat.

“Hi,” I say when he sits in the empty seat beside my desk. And I'm suddenly lost in deep eyes, strong hands holding the paper, the curve of his lips, the long black eye lashes . . . It might be worse than before.
Snap out of it
.

He acts as if nothing is out of the ordinary and gets right to business.

“I read over the description of the project. Pretty straightforward. We choose a subject and each write an opinion piece on that subject. Together, we create an unbiased report or a study giving some outcome based upon our evaluation for the pro or the con.”

I nod and feel a pinch in my lip—I am biting it again.
Focus, Kate
, I keep telling myself. I have no idea what he's talking about.

Eyes down at the paper, I read the subjects and pick the first one that makes sense to my addled brain.

“Interpersonal Relations. That seems a logical fit, since we both work at the Monrovi. Well, I don't actually work there, I'm just living off my father and hanging out there, since I'm so bored with my wealthy, posh existence.” This just pops out, and I'm sort of proud of myself.

His eyes lift toward mine and a slight grin plays over his lips. “How about instead the subject of
Trust
?” Caleb says, still staring into my eyes. I wonder if he does this on purpose, and whether it's a talent he uses with other girls. The effect is disconcerting, to say the least.

“Trust? Is that on the list?” And sure enough, it is.

He's still staring at me, and I wonder about the look on his face. It's like a challenge. From the corner of my eye, I see Bryan Fischer sneaking continued glances our way, as if evaluating our interaction, making mental notes to report back to Ted.

“That's kind of a wide-open topic,” I say.

“We can write our opinions about the subject and then find a way to measure and evaluate trust between two individuals.”

This sounds scary. Sort of like a setup. “How?”

He's quiet a moment, thinking, and I can't stop looking at those darn lips that look soft and, frankly, kissable. My mouth actually waters. Descriptive passages I've read in one of my sister's old trashy romance novels start skittering through my head, and I start the focus chant in my head again.
Focus,
Kate, focus, focus. Not on the face, focus, not on the arms, on the
assignment!

“Why don't I plan an experiment for our evaluation on trust?”