Ice (22 page)

“Couch is fine. Thanks.”

Justin held the door open for him, and after Marcus sat his suitcases down in the living room, they shook hands and introduced each other properly. It all felt so strange, like I was watching a dream play out before my eyes. I guess I should have been happy, like Kavick said, but I couldn’t, for some reason. It felt too strange and all I could think about was the way Kavick had suddenly left and what he might have wanted to tell me.

Part 2

I woke up the next day feeling like I hadn’t woken up at all. I still felt like I was living in a dream. I couldn’t believe that Marcus was here. For once I didn’t have breakfast alone; I shared it with Marcus. He told me he didn’t know how I ever got used to the cold gloominess here. I grinned above the corner of my toast. “You feel like a fish out of water, don’t you?”

He nodded vigorously with wide eyes. He looked like he was about to go mad. He hadn’t even been here tw
enty-four hours; how was he going to manage until my birthday?

He had revealed last night just before settling down on the couch that his
arrival was a present from my aunt to help lift my spirits, since she had heard from Marcus how I had mentioned in a few of my e-mails that I was having trouble adjusting. I recounted the information in my mind as I nibbled on my toast. I didn’t have much of an appetite, because every time I thought of Kavick I got a sick feeling in my stomach, and despite my efforts, my mind kept jumping back to him.

“I had seen her outside the school sometimes picking up your cousin,”
Marcus had explained.
“I would wave to her whenever I would see her. Then she comes over to me one day, asks me if I’ve heard from you, because she was worried about you. She said she hadn’t heard from you since you moved, so I told her about the e-mails you were sending me. She asked me again later and I told her you seemed really down in the last e-mail and that I wished there was some way I could see you. She offered to send me to Alaska so that you could be happy. I asked her if she was sure, and she said she thought it would be good for you to have a friend in such a dreary, depressing place. I said that I couldn’t let her do that, but she insisted, saying it would be her birthday present to you.”

“Whatcha thinking about?” he asked me, having no problems putting his breakfast away.

I tossed the toast down onto my plate, feeling stupid holding it in front of my lips but never doing more than a few nibbles. “Everything,” I breathed, nervously rubbing my legs under the table. My body ached some from the cold that was thickening in the air. I would have to turn the heat up a little before I would leave.

Marcus looked at me for a second with those dark eyes and pointed his fork at me. “You know, now you’re kind of…what’s the word…secretive? You used to tell me whatever was on your mind.”

I tried to fake surprise, only raising my eyebrows slightly. “Oh really?” I said, not sounding nearly as intrigued as I should have. I never was really as open to Marcus as I tried to seem. However, now I wasn’t as focused on putting up a comfortable façade. I took offense to it a little, but I knew I had changed. I had changed ever since my parents’ deaths, but he hadn’t been around to notice because of his girlfriend.

“It was stupid of him to throw away your friendship like that.”

I remembered Kavick’s words and the sinking feeling returned to my stomach, so I moved one of the hands from my legs to my waist. My eyes shifted downward, examining a crack in the floor and then moved up to Big John who was watching us intently from the couch in the living room. He was standing tall, resting his front legs on the top of the couch. As much as I didn’t want to think about Kavick because of the horrible guilty feeling that was hanging over me, I couldn’t help but remember the times with him in the past and the interesting things he would tell me.

“You’re enigmatic,”
Kavick had said once with a grin. A white puff of breath had popped up from that grin. We had been at the Magic Place, huddled in front of the fire.

“I’m what?”
I had asked. Enigmatic was the last thing I had ever expected to be called.

“Enigmatic. It means you’re mysterious.”

“I know what it means,”
I laughed, seeing several thick clouds of white coming up in front of my face. He had shared in the laughter with me.
“Why do you think I’m mysterious?”

“Because you’re the strange
California girl who’s always thinking, but will never tell me what it is.”
He grinned the whole time he said it, and that was one of those magical moments I felt myself smile. He then added self-consciously,
“I meant strange in a good way. Like, you’re the ‘interesting’ kind of strange, not the bad kind.”

I had then just shook my head at him and said,
“Right. Nice save.”

“No, really! I really mean it! You’re very interesting…!”

Why did Marcus have to call me secretive? It made me feel like a bad person with a hidden agenda. Couldn’t he have called me something nicer like Kavick would have?

I made an effort to elaborate so he would see that I wasn’t “secretive” at all. And then I mentally kicked myself for that thought since I had plenty of secrets to hide. “I’m just thinking about how you showed up out of the blue last night… it’s kind of hard to believe.”

He gave me that smile I remembered swooning over. “I know, right? I can’t believe I’m here, either, and I can’t believe you feel that way about me. I didn’t even realize I felt that way about you until I read your e-mail!” he gushed, like he was still in shock, himself. Marcus was somebody who never had problems expressing himself…unlike me. “I mean, I had always been attracted to you, but I just thought that was because you were pretty and you were my friend and stuff….”

He then shook his head
, as if to clear it. “I don’t know what I was thinking before. It was like I always knew, but I didn’t at the same time. I just wish I would have stopped for five seconds to think about what I really wanted instead of what Marcia wanted me to want.”

I nodded, because it didn’t take a rocket scientist to see she was a manipulative witch, yet he never saw it.
Charlotte had always told me it was because the only thing he could see was her big boobs. I then stopped myself halfway through the nod, realizing that was a “I told you so” gesture. I awkwardly scratched my head and got up from the table, also wanting to save myself from the subject of my feelings, which I was no longer sure of.

“Well, I better get to school.” I stretched in front of the table and faked a yawn to spare me much chance for talk and then quickly pitched my toast to Big John, who jumped up and caught it in the air like a circus dog, impressing Marcus.

“Freaking awesome!” he yelled, jumping up from the table. “What other tricks can he do?”

“Uh, I don’t know,” I shrugged, amazed at Big John’s leap, as well. I put my plate in the sink and asked, “What are you going to do about school?”

“We’re going to the same school, so I’ll just hitch a ride with you.”

I turned back around to the sink and tried to hide the surprise on my face. I felt my blood go cold. Seeing Marcus every
day terrified me, because I knew there would be more chances for him to ask me about how I felt. He assumed I felt the same way as him, but eventually I would have to explain to him that e-mail had been written a
long
time ago.

“Oh…neat,” I said in a small voice, putting on a smile for him.

We walked outside into the frosty air, and just after I locked the front door, I noticed Marcus staring at the forest surrounding Justin’s property. As we walked down the steps together, he asked curiously, “Who was that guy that you were talking to last night?”

“I told you, a friend,” I said simply.

“He seemed kind of strange…” he said in deep thought.

I chuckled and said, “Oh, you mean his hair?”

Marcus finally looked at me and said, “Yeah, but not just that…he seemed kind of off.”

“Like how?” I asked, even though I had noticed it, too.

“He acted weird.”

“He was just surprised to see you, I think. I certainly was.” I chuckled again, trying to ease the tension I was sensing from Marcus. It seemed like Marcus viewed him as a potential rival for my feelings, even though I had told him Kavick was just a friend.

I can’t believe this is happening,
I thought as we trekked down to the stop sign.

Marcus slipped on a patch of ice and cursed. I laughed and helped him up, saying, “You better get used to it. It’ll happen a lot more, trust me.”

“How can you stand it here? I’m already sick of it,” he grunted as he stood up, walking funny now because of his sore butt. I couldn’t keep from giggling. He looked back at me saying, “At least it served as good entertainment for someone.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, still laughing because he was still doing that walk that was more of a scoot.

“No, you’re not,” he said quickly.

“I’m sorry,” I said again, because he was right.

“Don’t worry, I won’t hold it against you,” he smiled, holding his hand out for me. I looked down at the black glove, unsure for a moment before I finally took it. I forced a smile at him again, trying to avoid the awful confession that would come later.

Through classes, I thought about how people in literature through out the years went on and on about how hard it was just to say “I love you”. But how on earth do you say, “I used to love you, and I might still, but I’m not sure, because that was a long time ago”?

I’m so stupid,
I thought in the girls’ bathroom, resting my head against the wall, suddenly too tired to hold my head up anymore. For once there was no one else in there, so I didn’t have to worry about any strange stares.
How hard is it just to
make up your mind?

I opened my eyes, not looking at the wall, but at Marcus in my mind’s eye. I remembered his words from breakfast.

“I just wish I would have stopped for five seconds to think about what I really wanted instead of what Marcia wanted me to want.”

I replaced the name Marcia with Marcus and played it again in my head. It wo
uld be so easy to walk up to him and say that I felt the same. I was scared of hurting Marcus and, besides, isn’t this what I always wanted? Shouldn’t I be happy like Kavick said? And who’s to say I don’t love him? Maybe I just needed to spend some time with him to remember why I fell in love with him before. I figured I would take Justin’s advice about deciding where to live and apply it also to my situation with Marcus; there was no need to hurry. I just needed to take some time to think about what I really wanted and eventually my mind would
have
to come to a decision.

I took a deep breath and stepped away from the wall. I happened to glance in the large mirror above the lavatory and noticed that I didn’t look the same. There definitely was something different about my face, but
I couldn’t put my finger on it.

I leaned forward a
nd turned my head from side to side. And then I saw it: my face was thinner. My cheekbones were more defined and my face looked a little more mature. I wondered exactly when it had happened, especially since I had forced myself to eat meat from time to time, because I couldn’t always feed it to Big John.

I turned my body and examined how my skinny jeans were a little looser on me now. And that’s when I remembered all the worrying I had done recently. Even though I only nibbled on the corner of my toast this morning, I still wasn’t hungry.

“I can’t believe I caught you looking at yourself in the mirror!” Molly laughed as she pranced through the bathroom door. She wiggled her dark eyebrows at me and I quickly turned away from the mirror. “Planning on how to impress Mr. Muscles?”

I frowned at her. “I just noticed something different
about myself, is all,” I said dryly. I started washing my hands to avoid looking at her.

“It’s frown lines, isn’t
it? I knew you’d get wrinkles from looking so serious all the time….”

I shot her a
glare as she put more pink lipgloss on her lips. I knew I didn’t have frown lines, and I wouldn’t care if I did. And then I looked over at her, realizing there was something strange about her. “Molly…may I ask why you’re wearing makeup?”

“Why? I wear black eyeliner,
” she said like she was offended.

“Only when you’re going to a party after school. You’ve never worn eye shadow, or blush…”

“Okay, fine!” she confessed, shoving her lipgloss back into her messenger bag. She pushed her blocky glasses up the bridge of her nose. “So what?”

“Nothing,” I blinked, surprised by her outrage. “I just wondered why you were denying it.”

I saw a totally natural blush slowly come over her olive face.

“You look really pretty.”

She softened her demeanor and spoke in a much calmer voice, seeming even more embarrassed of herself. “Thanks.”

She cleared her throat and attempted to regain her composure. “
Well, this is our last year of high school, you know? I haven’t been on a single date this year. I want to have a boyfriend when I graduate. It will be a lot harder to get a guy after we leave.”

I saw myself frown in the mirror as I thought of her words and immediately relaxed my face so I wouldn’t get wrinkles. Dang, now she had me self-conscious about my appearance. “I never thought about that before.”

“Yeah!” she said, clearly getting worked up again. “Now there’s a hot new student like Mr. Muscles! I have to try to nab a cute guy before I leave.”