Captivate Me (Book One: The Captivated Series) (5 page)

As I contemplated being
the first one to move in, an unwelcome face entered my mind –
Hannah. She would have already been attached to him like a leech by
now, unable to control herself. Shame tugged at my heart again, but
I swatted it away and tried to refocus on Levi. This was
my
chance with him; he
wanted
me
.

But do you really want
HIM?
my subconscious retorted, and the
doubt in my belly swelled like a rising tide.

Frustrated and annoyed, I
pursed my lips. I suddenly felt crowded, like I couldn’t breathe,
and not in a good way. Like I was smothering. Levi and the
anticipation mixed with the shame and doubt had made for a toxic
blend. My knees felt weak and my head spun like a carousel. I
pressed my hand to my forehead.
What’s
wrong with me?

“Babe? You all right?” he asked,
bracing his hands on my shoulders.

Ms. Newton’s voice traveled down the
hallway. “Levi!” she barked. “You know you’re not supposed to be up
here!”

I flinched at her abruptness; I’d
never heard a teacher talk that way here. She must have really
meant business. But Levi hadn’t seemed to notice or care. His only
concern was me. “Hey…” he coaxed, cupping my cheek and brushing it
with his thumb. “You okay?”

I wanted to reply with “I’m not sure,”
but that would make him worry until he saw me again tomorrow.
Instead, I nodded, forcing a thin smile.

“See you tomorrow?”

I mustered an edge of confidence to my
voice. “See you tomorrow.” Almost believable.

“Levi!” she barked again.

“You better go,” I said, still smiling
and trying my damndest to convince him I was all right. “See you in
the morning.”

“All right.” He didn’t seem completely
persuaded, but kissed my forehead and hurried for the stairwell
anyway. He didn’t really have a choice.

Ms. Newton watched after him and made
sure he was down the stairs before her eyes snapped back to me.
“Goodnight, Ms. Walsh,” she said expectantly, waiting for me to
enter my room.

“Good night,” I murmured and went
inside.

As soon as I was in the
safe confines of my room, I wilted onto the bed, disappointed and a
little shaky. That wasn’t how I’d seen this going; I’d
really
wanted our first
kiss to be tonight. Why did Hannah have to show up in my thoughts
and ruin it all? I desperately yearned for my friendship with Liz.
She was the best at helping me sort things out. But of course, I
didn’t want to call her, and the feelings were mutual. The next
best thing was my mom.
Mom…
my thoughts echoed, and I ached even more to hear
her voice. After two weeks here, this officially marked the time
when I began feeling homesick.

Because we didn’t have cell reception
out here in the middle of nowhere, I picked up the landline phone
on my desk and dialed Ireland. It was eleven o’clock our time, so
in Dublin it would be about six in the morning. Maybe my parents
would be up early.

The phone rang a few times, and my
hope slowly dwindled with each ring.

“Hello?” my mom yawned.

Relief and joy surged through me.
“Mom!” I cried. I so wished I could wrap my arms around
her.

“Kat!” she replied, matching my
enthusiasm. The phone rustled around. “Isaac…” she said, moving the
phone away from her ear, probably shaking my dad awake. “It’s
Kat.”

My dad groaned in the background.
“Kat?” he replied.

“Yes.” She brought the phone back up
to her mouth. “How are you, sweetie? We’ve missed you so
much!”

“I’m good,” I replied, wiping away a
tear, “Sorry I woke you guys.”

“Oh, no… no no no.
Don’t you worry
about that. You call us anytime you want.”

I realized it had been a few days
since I’d called and I felt guilty. She had probably been carrying
the phone around with her everywhere she went. “Okay,
mom.”

“So things are going well? How are
your new friends?”

“Good… everyone’s good. I got a new
roommate today.”

“Oh, good! I was hoping that. What’s
she like… is she nice?”

“She’s super sweet. Her name’s
Anna.”

“Wonderful, dear.” She paused for a
beat, lowered her voice to a whisper and said, “Have any boys
caught your eye?”

My dad’s voice groaned again in the
background. “She doesn’t need to bother with boys right
now.”

“
Oh, Isaac...
really.
” I heard the
covers rustle and her feet pattering against the hardwood floor. I
knew exactly what she was doing – going into a separate room and
away from dad. I smiled. My dad - ever the protector of the
family.

“Well?” she probed when she got
wherever she was going. A coffee pot clinked in the
background.

I hesitated for a flicker
of a moment. Was I really ready to talk about him yet?
“Well…
there is this one,” I finally
said.

The clinking stopped.
“And?”

“Not much to say yet, I guess… he’s
really thoughtful and cute.”

“Those are good things.”

“Yeah. And mom? Did you ever feel like
you weren’t good enough for a guy?”

“Good enough?” she repeated
skeptically.

I’d said that wrong. “Like he might be
better for someone else?” I clarified.

“Well, I…” her voice trailed. Had I
struck a nerve?

“Honestly, Kat. Any guy would be lucky
to have you. You’re so sweet and young and have so much ahead of
you. Just enjoy your time there and don’t worry about things so
much.”

I nodded, convincing myself to heed
her advice. Maybe I was worrying myself into feeling like Levi and
I didn’t belong.

“Don’t be like me and overanalyze
things,” she continued. “Just have fun… at this age you’re just
supposed to be having fun.”

I sighed to steel the rest of my
frazzled nerves. “Okay, mom.”

“So what are your plans for tomorrow?”
she asked, to move the conversation along.

“I haven’t really thought about it
yet.”

“Isn’t the dance next
week?”

My stomach fluttered excitedly. The
dance. I’d totally forgotten about it. Midland Pines had a dance at
the beginning of the school year. “Yes, it’s next
Friday.”

“Well go get a dress this weekend,
sweetie. We didn’t pack you one.”

“Nothing too short!” my dad added in
the background, and I rolled my eyes with a smile. Mom was probably
swatting him away now. He must have followed her.

I ran through my wardrobe in my mind.
I had a few sundresses, nothing formal. But what would I buy it
with? I didn’t have a job, and I didn’t want to use the credit card
my parents had given me for emergencies.

“Use the card we gave you,” she said,
echoing my thoughts, “there are dress stores in town,
right?”

“Oh, I’m sure there are.”

“Are you…” She paused.

“Am I, what, mom?” I asked, and then
it hit me – she wanted to ask if the boy I was referring to earlier
was taking me, but she didn’t want to ask in front of my dad.
Honestly, though, it hadn’t crossed my mind because none of us had
talked about it. The dance had been overshadowed by the away game.
But for all intents and purposes, we were kind of an item; us going
together wasn’t a wild assumption. “Yes, mom, I’ll be going with
Levi.”

“Well good,” she replied.

I yawned deeply. “Okay, mom… well I
think I’m going to hit the sack.”

“Okay, dear.”

“Love you… and tell dad and Sam I love
them too. Is he up yet?”

“No… you know he sleeps until noon on
the weekends, but I will and I love you too, dear. Talk to you
soon?”

“I’ll call this weekend.”

“Okay. Talk to you then.”

After the phone clicked, I held it to
my ear a little longer, wishing I hadn’t ended the conversation so
quickly. But my eyes had started to droop, and I wasn’t much for
conversation once I was sleepy.

As soon as I placed the phone on the
receiver, Anna burst through the door, her expression ten shades of
blissful.

“Hey, girl,” I said, eyeing her with a
smile.

“Hi…” she breathed and sank onto the
bed, her eyes distant as her mind lingered in some heavenly faraway
land.

“Had a good time tonight?” I
probed.

“Ronnie put his arm around
me and walked me to the stairs,” she purred. Yeah, she didn’t have
it bad for him… she had it something
awful
. Looked like crazy-Ronnie and
sweet-Anna were going to happen whether I wanted it to or
not.

My smile widened. At least one of us
ended the night on a high note, because lord knows it wasn’t Sarah
or me.

* * *

I awoke with a gasp, my
wide, puffy eyes searching our room. Soft beams of splintered light
poured over our floor from between the blinds.
Morning.
I glanced at the clock on
our desk.
Eight thirty six.
Dang.
I’d hoped to sleep
until ten.

I laid back down with a plop, thinking
over the crazy dream that had awakened me too early. There hadn’t
been a coherent theme at first; mainly just a blending of the past
two weeks – familiar faces, hallway walks with Levi, the game last
night. But then I dreamt of the woods. At first, I strolled through
them, taking in their quiet serenity as the pine-scented breeze and
moving shadows coaxed me farther in. I saw a flash of a silhouette
– a familiar silhouette, the same one that had arrested my
attention at the game. The silent visitor dashed from tree to tree,
and I was only able to get flickers of his features each time – his
chestnut hair, flawless skin, a twinkle of his crystal blue eyes.
It was almost as if he wanted me to see him, but didn’t… or
couldn’t. I wasn’t sure which.

I then decided to chase
him for more; I wanted to see more of him. All of him. When I
sprang in his direction, he took off like a gazelle, lithe and
nimble through the woods as if he’d lived there his entire life.
But no matter how fast I ran, his black shirt and beauty were
always an arm’s length away. I stumbled over a log, and down I went
into a hole. Down, down, down until I had awakened with a
gasp.
Weird.

Raising my hands above my
head, I stretched my body from the tips of my fingers to the bottom
of my feet to ease my rigid muscles. Yep. I definitely could have
used a few more hours. Part of the reason I was so tired? Anna
talks in her sleep.
A lot.
And I couldn’t help but listen for a while to her
incoherent babblings and laugh before I finally dozed off.
Apparently she liked to smear peanut butter on things and had a
fascination with Ronnie’s nipples. I wondered if the two were
connected.
Gross.
Maybe those two weirdos did belong together.

Laughing at the thought, I rolled out
of bed. Shopping sounded wonderful today. As I stood, I knocked a
small white object from my pillow. I stared at its curved petals as
it lay on the cold wooden floor. A flower. Had Levi left this?
Tentatively, I collected it from the ground to study it and rubbed
a velvety petal between my fingers. I’d seen this flower before on
the bushes at the edge of the woods and sprinkled into the
shrubbery in the courtyard – almost like a lily with its belled
shape, but smaller, and a tinge of yellow in the center. Levi must
have risked getting in trouble again last night to pick this and
bring it to me. The gesture induced a brilliant smile. He
definitely deserved a first kiss for this, and today would be the
day.

Tap-tap-tap.

A knock at the door made me jump.
Hoping it was Levi, I rushed to answer it. Before I swung the door
wide, I pulled my just-woke-up hair into a ponytail and checked my
breath by breathing into a cupped hand. Not heinous.

“Morning!” Sarah chimed,
her silvery eyes gleaming.
Dang.
No Levi. She and Ivy were dressed in cute skirts
and tank tops with their purses looped over their shoulders, and
Ivy had taken the time to curl her shoulder-length midnight hair
into perfect glossy spirals. “Want to get out of here and go
shopping for dresses?”

I halfway wondered if she’d read my
mind this time without permission. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes.
“Sure.”

“Don’t look so excited,” Ivy said,
deadpan.

“Sorry. I thought you guys were
Levi.”

“Well get your crap together and meet
us in the parking lot in twenty,” Sarah said. “We have some
shopping to do!”

“Thirty,” I bargained. “I need a
shower.”

“Twenty-five,” she
counter-offered.

“Fine, fine,” I said, whirling back
inside, “keep your hair on, girls.”

Before I shut the door, Sarah added,
“And bring Anna!”