Shattered (15 page)

Lydia and Sophia sighed and slouched in
their chairs. They laughed, apparently relieved about something.

“Sweetie,” Lydia said. “We thought you
were going to say you were pregnant with a baby we couldn’t sense.” Chris
joined their hysterical laughter. The men at the table didn’t find it funny at
all. Mr. Gavin pointed a butter knife at me and shook his head. “So … it’s not
a baby?” Lydia asked.

“No, Mom.”

“Imagine that,” Mr. Gavin said. “Someone
actually mentioning a pregnancy. That’s a novel idea.”

Again with the silence. Again with the
tension.

“Trust me, Dad,” Chris said. “It’s better
that she didn’t. Take my word for it.” She managed to laugh, and Sophia
chuckled with her. The estranged couple stared at each other like either a war
or a make-out session could happen between them at any moment. “It was for the
best,” Chris said. “And speaking of … for the best.”

She raised the
iPad
and showed the screen to the table. It was a blog post that said:
An orphan with a father?

“Emma sent me this early this morning,”
she said. All three of her guardians spoke at once, all saying a version of:
Don’t worry. We can handle this
. “I’m
sure you can,” she butted in. “But since Dad is now famous and I’m sure this
will hit the news at some point, I think it’s safe to say Emma’s outfit choices
are not going to get me out of this one.” She cleared her throat again and
straightened in her chair. “That’s why I think we should discuss Trenton. With
this post, and after what happened with Nathan, I think it will now be a
hostile environment. I want to take a leave of absence until this and the Kamon
thing dies down.”

Oh. I caught on then. My girlfriend’s DNA
made her even more dramatic than Emma. She was trying to quit school to help me.
No question about it.

She interrupted the three separate
conversations going on at once and held the
iPad
up
for us to view again.

“I looked into it,” she said. “This is
the form I would need. I could withdraw from the semester without any penalties
and just register for the same classes again next time if I decide to go back.”

“If?” her dad said. “What do you mean …
if
? You still want to be an artist,
right?”

Chris shrugged and said, “I’m not sure
about the future, but at least right now, Trenton’s not the best place for me. Nate
was attacked yesterday. I don’t want it to happen again.”

Lydia and Sophia glared at me. I lifted
my palms and said, “I don’t have anything to do with this.” Not directly
anyway. “You don’t have to quit Trenton, Chris. I’m fine.”

“I’m tired of
fine
,” she said. “All of you keep saying that to me. Everything’s
fine. You know what? It’s not. Even if Kamon didn’t have anything to do with
last night, he’s still a threat. It would be easier if I just laid low until
you guys do whatever you’re going to do to end this. I’m not trying to get
involved, I swear. I’m not going to ask you anything about Kamon, but going to
a place where he knows where I am every day is nuts. I’m not going to pretend
it’s not anymore.”

Of course, Lydia and Sophia went on about
how everything
was
fine and would
continue to be fine. That pissed Christine off.

“Look,” she said. “I get why you guys
want me to go to Trenton. I really do. And I’ve complied with everything you’ve
asked of me. I’ve done everything …” Her voice cracked, and I stood. Everyone’s
eyes moved to me, and I sat slowly. I guessed now wasn’t the time to console
her.

“I’ve done everything,” Chris continued.
“…I’m supposed to do. I take the potion. I don’t ask you guys anything about
Kamon, but I need this. I really need this.” She shrugged her shoulders and
sighed. “It’s out there on the table that I no longer feel comfortable at
Trenton. Maybe not forever, but at least right now, and … I don’t know. Maybe
we could vote or something.”

Chris angled her body towards Sophia and
made us all look at her.

“Well,” Sophia said. “I feel confident in
my spells and the other things we have in place, and you’re doing a great job
in school. I vote to stay.”

Chris sighed and looked at me. I didn’t
want a butter knife through my chest, so I said, “Pass. Not a parent.” Chris
nodded and turned to her mother.

“I’m also confident in the things we have
in place,” Lydia said. “But …” Chris smiled wide. “For years I made you stay in
a place you weren’t comfortable in. You were safe but unhappy. I don’t want to
do that again. I still want you to grow up to be an artist, but you have time.
I’ll vote for the leave of absence, if that’s what you want, if you promise to
go back.”

Chris nodded but didn’t promise anything
outright. Obviously, seeing me like she saw me had made it far less important
to please her parents with Trenton. She’d played along for two months. It made
me feel special, too special.

“Dad?” she said. “What’s your vote?”

He leaned back in his seat. “I understand
Nathan was hurt last night,” he said. “But …” I glanced at Sophia. We both knew
he was about to vote for Trenton because Lydia hadn’t. “You’re doing really
well in school. What else are you going to do but sit around here and miss
being there? I think that will make you unhappy, so I vote to stay at Trenton.
The vote is two to one. Trenton wins.”

He meant: Lydia loses. But we were the
real losers. Chris smelled and looked like she wanted this, needed this, just
as much as I did, and since she’d opened it to a vote, it wasn’t going to
happen. I would still have a stressful job to do.

The meeting adjourned on that somber
note, and I went to the pool house to give Chris time with her parents and
Sophia.

“Suck it up,” I told myself. “Pull
yourself together. She doesn’t need to quit school. You just need to do better.
Be better.”

Paul popped in unannounced and greeted me
with a kick in the balls.

I caught him by the neck and wrestled him
to the ground. “Mercy, Sparky. Mercy!”

“No, say you’re sorry!” I yelled. I
twisted his arm like a pretzel and he squealed like a girl. “Say, King Nathan,
I apologize for my severe incompetence.” He repeated me in a high-pitched
voice. “And I’m a horrible dresser, and I look like a troll compared to you, my
king.” He didn’t comply, so I twisted his arm a little more.

“I’m a horrible dresser, and I look like
a troll compared to you, my king!”

I freed him, and he kicked me in the
balls again, this time too hard to fight him back. I rolled around on the
ground as he laughed and straightened his hair.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, when
I finally composed myself.

“I need a reason? Goodness.”

“Yes, you need a reason. Where’s Em?”

“With her dad.” He held a pretend gun to
his head and pulled the trigger. I stood and wrapped an arm around his
shoulder.

“Let me use that thing after you, bro,” I
said. “I hate dads.”

“They suck. Moms are much cooler.” We
walked out of the pool house and suddenly separated like we were hiding our
friendship from the outside world. “In your case, I bet that’s not so true.”

“No comment,” I said. On my mother or
Christine’s.

We sat by the pool, and I waited for him
to light a cigarette. He lasted about a minute and said, “Do you mind?”

“No.”

“Em’s gone all Nazi on me now. She asked
me to quit yesterday. For some reason, she thinks I’m easily addicted to
things.”

“Hum,” I said, laughing with him. “I
wonder why.”

He lit his cigarette and stared into the
burning end as if now was the time to examine what he was putting into his
body. “She gave me a few months, so I’m going to milk every second of it. That
girl is going to be the death of me.”

I laughed and nodded to the cigarette. “I
think Emma is the least of your worries.”

“Are you kidding? I’m a wizard. I could
heal myself of emphysema, but I’m never going to rid myself of Emma Arnaud.
She’s going to be breathing down my neck for the next century. Then we’ll die
and get reincarnated as birds, end up in the same nest, and start all over
again.”

“That’s probable,” I said.

“Totally. What about you? Where are you
going to end up?” I hunched my shoulders and watched two birds fly from one
tree to another. I briefly considered who they could’ve been in a past life.
“Oh, there it is,” he said. “The look.”

“What look?”

“The look you get when you’re thinking …
oh, whoa is me. I have this beautiful, rich girlfriend.” He’d adopted a
ridiculous southern accent. “She’s so wonderful and kind and nicely
proportioned. Whatsoever shall I do with my life, kind sir?” I tossed a rock at
him, hoping he’d stop with the accent. “You have no clue how easy you have it.”

I rolled my eyes. He had it easy. He was
from the same background as his girlfriend.
They’d
practically been raised by the same people
. His relationship was
outstandingly simple compared to mine.

“Your parents are best friends with
hers,” I said. “Your grandparents are in love with her. What’s easier than
that?”

“Emma has a bit of a reputation, being
that she used to practice dark magic with her sister and all. They love her,
but if she suddenly started wearing all black and killing people, no one would
be shocked. You, on the other hand, are dating an heiress.”

“Who inherited a lot of problems with her
money and could be killed at any moment.”

“We can all die at any moment. An
asteroid can hit the earth. Lydia Shaw could go ape-shit again. Someone else
could try a portal and not include us this time. Christine doesn’t own death, Nate.
Don’t pick at the imperfect parts because you’re you. You’ll miss a lot of
life. I fell in love with Emma when I first noticed she had boobs. I could’ve
been dating her for years, but my mind was on the pressures of being in my
family and drinking. Stupid things.” He flicked me, right between my eyebrows,
and a little ash from his cigarette landed on my shirt. “Get your mind off of
the stupid things, OCD boy.”

I flipped him off. I didn’t think a
condition like that was possible for an ex-homeless guy. For months, I’d kept a
toothbrush in my pocket. I did
not
have OCD. I didn’t need
everything
to
be perfect … just things with Chris. And no, she didn’t own death, but hers was
way more present than any of ours. Worrying about her wasn’t weird. Paul was
weird.

I changed the subject to his life so I
wouldn’t have to defend the way I thought or the things I cared about, and I
was also very interested in how the Ewings were handling everyone knowing their
secret. He filled me in as he finished his cigarette.

The news had made less of a splash than
imagined. Emma’s parents had reacted like the rest of us with sympathy and
planning, uselessly, to never drink around him.

The day passed quickly with him hanging
around. Emma joined him after a few hours to be with Christine. She had to
share her with her father, as he still refused to leave. It took me a while,
but I finally saw what was keeping him here. He was now famous, now a target,
and was probably afraid to go home alone.

On Sunday morning, I couldn’t avoid
spending time with the Gavin twins together. We watched the news coverage of
Christine’s new father and the many theories of how they’d found each other.
This was the opposite of what we needed, more attention. More problems.

Chris refused to watch anything else. I
thought her plan was to show him just how crazy school was going to be tomorrow
with this new information out there, but he still didn’t change his vote.

****

As instructed, we parroted the story
Lydia had come up with to explain why our famous orphan suddenly had a dad. It
was a mix of truths and lies, like all the best lies were. As I cleaned, I
must’ve said …
He saw her pictures on the
news and immediately thought she was his child. He lost her and his wife during
the war, and he was hopeful that she was his little girl. He searched for her
and found her at Trenton, and now they are working on their ever-blossoming
relationship
… about twenty freaking times.

But other than that, the day was
uneventful.

I kissed Christine goodbye in front of
her last class. I pulled away, but she held on, coaxing me into a deeper kiss.
When we finally ended it, we smiled together, lips still touching. I had to
remind myself that I would see her in an hour. It felt like a goodbye kiss. It
was good enough to be one.

“I love you,” she said. “See you after
class.”

“I’ll be cleaning right next door if you
get scared.”

“I know. I hope we won’t have to do this
for long. I’m going to talk to my mom again. If she can sway Sophia, we can
take another vote.”

I kissed her cheek. “I’m here as long as
you need me, pretty lady.” She smiled, her sad one, and disappeared into her
classroom.

 
I rolled my cart into the classroom next
door and groaned. Paul might be right about me having OCD. I absolutely hated
when things were out of order, and this room was all wrong. About twenty empty
pizza boxes were stacked next to the trashcan, an impressive effort for these
kids, and the desks had been pushed against the walls.