The Gathering Dark (12 page)

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But I’m glad you told me.” She reached out and put a hand on his arm. Walker tensed as though he meant to pull away, but then she felt him relax. He put his hand on top of hers and shrugged. “I probably shouldn’t have, but I can’t see how it matters. Anyway, my parents—they thought they were protecting me. I know they really believed that it was the right thing to do. Sometimes, though . . . ” He paused. His eyes met hers and his gaze prowled through her. “Sometimes it’s hard to know which thing is the right one.”

An obsidian tendril sprang from the table, rising into the space between them like a vine. It hovered in the open air for a moment before slithering around Walker’s neck and sinking into his skin. The world seemed to slow and shrink around Keira, until all she could see was the darkness writhing against his throat. He leaned closer to her and stared, like he was watching her lose her mind. The black mark slipped out of Keira’s vision, disappearing as quickly as it had come.

“Sometimes, there’s more to something than meets the eye. Things not everyone notices,” he whispered.

She pulled away from him.
Oh, God. He
could
tell
.

Struggling to regain her mental balance, Keira picked up her fork. Her hand hovered above the last bite of her pie. The point.

“Make a wish,” Walker reminded her, signaling the waitress for the check.

Let
me
be his right thing.

There were a thousand things she should be wishing for instead of that. Sanity, for one. An acceptance letter from Juilliard. A million dollars. But instead of changing her wish, she scooped up the pie and put it in her mouth. Eating a bite of dessert had never been so terrifying. She’d just asked the universe for the most foolish thing imaginable, and even more foolishly, she didn’t care.

Across from her, Walker dropped a few bills on the table. “C’mon. I’d better get you home.” He offered her his hand, helping her out of the booth, but once she was on her feet, he didn’t let go.

Keira didn’t either.

Chapter Sixteen

A
S
W
ALKER DROVE HER
home, Keira snuck a glance at his profile. His dark eyes were focused on the road. In the set of his jaw, she could read the history that he’d worked so hard to hide. He’d given her something, by telling her about his parents. Trusted her. It drove her to give something back, to tell him one of her own secrets.

“So, something really bizarre happened this weekend.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she wanted to suck them back in. They sounded so overdramatic.

“Oh yeah? What?” Walker glanced over at her.

Heat crept into Keira’s cheeks, and she hated that he could
see how uncomfortable she suddenly was. But she was committed to saying something.

“I wrote a song.” She stared out the window, turned resolutely away from Walker’s gaze.

“Really?” he asked. There was genuine interest in his voice. “I didn’t know you composed, too. Exactly how many interesting talents are you hiding from me?” There was an echo of double meaning in his voice—a question beneath the question—but it wasn’t his usual innuendo.

“I don’t know that I’d call it a talent. I’ve never actually composed anything before—that’s why it was so strange. I was trying to play and it—it just wasn’t
working.
And then, I don’t know, it was like my fingers were making up this song on their own. Ugh. That sounds crazy.”

“It doesn’t sound crazy. It sounds amazing. What inspired that?” he asked.

You.

The word caught in her throat, refusing to come out. She’d wanted to share something with him, open up the way he had in the diner, but she wasn’t ready to take it quite that far.

She shrugged.

“Well, I’d love to hear it,” Walker said, turning on to her street.

“It’s a long way from being ready,” she told him, “but when it is, I promise to play it for you.”

He answered her with a smile that caught her like an
undertow, dangerous and fast, dragging her toward him. Only this time, she was all too happy to go.

•  •  •

Inside the house, Keira dropped her bag in the front hall, wandered into the living room and hit the blinking button on the answering machine. She braced herself, waiting to hear her dad’s newest excuse for missing dinner.

Instead, it was Susan. A suspiciously muffled-sounding Susan, whose voice cracked on every third word as she begged Keira to call her back.

What the hell? Why didn’t she call my cell?

Keira scooped up her bag and dug out her phone.

Six missed calls.

Oh, shit.

Had it really been that loud in the diner?

Keira already had the phone to her ear and an apology on her lips.

“Wh-where were you?” The hitch in Susan’s voice was unmistakably the sound of hard crying and a lot of it.

“I was . . . ” Keira stopped. She’d been about to say
out with Walker
, but a sudden foreboding stopped the words before they could leave her mouth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear my phone. What
happened
?”

“Tommy broke up with me.”

“He
what
? Why?”

“After you left the caf, we went out to his car to talk. He
was pissed about the way you treated Jeremy at lunch.”

“Huh? Are you kidding? He dumped you because I didn’t play nice with Jeremy?” Keira sank onto the couch.

“Not exactly. It’s more that I stuck up for you today, and at the store, too, when they got you in trouble with Mr. Seever. He said the way I kept taking your side instead of his made him realize he needed to find someone who—and I quote—‘is interested in being part of
my
life.’ ”

“He . . . what? Is he serious?”

Susan let out a choked sob.

Keira got up, too full of anger to sit there and do nothing.

“So, do you think he’s really an asshole and he’s managed to hide it all this time, or do you think it’s a quality he’s just now developed?” Keira practically spat the words into the phone.

“He’s not an asshole. I mean, he’s right, in a way.”

“Breaking up with you because you are friends with me and I don’t want to go out with Jeremy is not ‘right.’ ”

Susan sighed defeatedly.

Keira squeezed her eyes shut. “Look, there are lots of guys out there. Great guys who will want to date you in spite of the fact that you’re friends with me.”

“I’m not blaming this on you!”

“I know you’re not. Dammit, I’m
trying
to make you feel better.”

“Yeah.” Susan sniffed. “Listen, I’ve gotta go. I think I’m getting a migraine. I need to take something and go to bed.”

It seemed like everything that came out of Keira’s mouth made things worse. “Okay,” she said finally. “I’ll keep my phone on the piano. Call me if you need me.”

“I will. Thanks.”

Keira scuffed over to the piano and dropped her phone next to her on the bench. She was already late in starting her practice on account of going out with Walker, but now she was doubly late and doubly distracted.

Professionals play through distractions all the time,
she reminded herself sternly. With a sharp exhale, she put her fingertips on the smooth keys and ran her fingers across them in a perfect, chiming scale. The mindless rote soothed her, as she hit the patterns of flats and sharps.

Still, as the night wore on, she lost track of how many times she picked up her fingers in the middle of a movement, thinking she’d heard the first mechanized note of her phone’s ringtone, but it never actually rang.

Susan never called.

•  •  •

The chime of an incoming message woke Keira the next morning. She’d fallen asleep without even unzipping her backpack full of homework.

Dammit. Maybe she could get her English assignment done in homeroom, and finish her math problems at lunch. Blinking the sleep out of her eyes, she dug her phone out from under her pillow.

Pick you up in 30?

Susan.

Wondering how she’d gotten her parents to give her back the car, Keira texted back a resounding “yes, please!” and rushed into the bathroom to shower.

Thirty-two minutes later, with a peanut butter sandwich in hand and her hair still wet, Keira climbed into Susan’s Toyota.

Susan’s eyes were swollen and her cheeks were blotchy. She’d pulled on a baseball cap, but her normally silky-straight hair looked stringy where it spilled out beneath it.

“Hey. You never called last night. I was worried,” Keira said.

“Sorry. My mother took my cell phone. She said the ‘waves’ from it were making my migraine worse. Can you imagine? I think she really just wanted to see if Tommy would call me or if I was telling the truth and we’d actually broken up.”

“And?”

Susan threw the car into reverse with a little too much enthusiasm.

“Nope. Why do you think I got the car back?” Susan’s voice was harsh. “They don’t give a shit where I go as long as I’m not out with a guy. Like I couldn’t lie to them if I wanted to. Like I couldn’t sneak off to the bathroom at school and do it during homeroom like Missy Bridwell and her boyfriend.”

Now Keira really couldn’t swallow her sandwich. “What? Are you—”

“I’m just being pissy. I never slept with Tommy. Jesus.
Don’t you think I would have told you if we had?”

“Sorry. No, I get it.” Keira looked down at her sandwich. “Do you want part of this?”

Susan shook her head, tapping her fingers against the steering wheel. “My stomach’s still gross from the Imitrex I took last night.” She wrapped her fingers tightly around the wheel, trying to get a grip in more ways than one.

“So, did you talk to Walker yesterday?” she asked.

“Actually, we went out. He picked me up after school and we grabbed something to eat.”

“Wow,” Susan said. “That’s—that’s like really dating. Huh. I never would have thought
you’d
have a boyfriend and
I’d
be single.”

Keira sank down in her seat. “I wouldn’t call him my boyfriend. We’ve only been out a couple of times. We haven’t even kissed.”

The admission felt too personal once the words were out in the open air of the car.

“Really?” Susan eyed her suspiciously. “Is there something wrong with him?”

Keira swallowed. She imagined Walker’s arms around her, how it would feel to have him lean close, the smile fading from his lips. His arms would tighten around her enough so their bodies finally touched and the heat between them . . . Jesus. She shook herself.

“Not at all,” she said casually. “We just don’t know each
other that well yet. Hey—we’re supposed to work on ‘Syrinx’ this afternoon. You still game?”

“No, but I need to.” Susan pulled into the school parking lot and Keira watched her best friend scan the cars to see if Tommy was already here. “Besides, isn’t that how you get through everything? Put your head down and focus on your music until the world gets its shit together?”

“Pretty much,” Keira admitted.

“Then I’m all for trying the Keira Method. Meet here after the last bell?”

“Yep.” Keira looked over at Susan. “You gonna make it through today?”

Susan shrugged. “Don’t have much choice.”

“Sucky, but true.” Keira grabbed her bag. “You ready?”

“You go ahead in. I’m gonna sit here for a second, I think.” Susan fiddled with the cap of her lip gloss and Keira could see her trying to hold herself together.

“I can wait,” Keira offered. “It’s not like I’m dying to get to English.”

Susan shook her head. “You get enough tardies on your own. I don’t want you picking up another one on my account. Really. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay. Text me if you need me.”

“I will.”

Keira walked into school with her phone clutched in her hand and her heart aching for Susan. What Tommy’d done
to Susan wasn’t fair, and Keira didn’t have any way to make it right. She wondered if tracking Tommy down and kicking him in the shins would make things better.

Probably not,
she decided,
but it would still feel really, really good.

Chapter Seventeen

A
FTER THE DRUDGERY OF
school, it was a relief to be at the piano, with Susan as desperate to dive into practice as Keira was.

Susan headed to the fridge to get a soda and brought one back for Keira.

“Thanks,” she said, setting it on the floor next to the piano. “You got the music? We need to get you ready to knock your teacher dead with your amazingness.”

“Here.” Susan pulled it out of her bag and set it on the piano in front of Keira.

Keira scanned through it, her fingers fluttering against the
edge of the keyboard in response to the notes slipping past her eyes.

“Okay,” Keira said. “I think I’ve got it.”

Susan stood next to her, the flute against her bottom lip, waiting.

Keira counted out a measure and then began to play.

They’d stumbled through two pages before Susan stopped midphrase. “I’m never going to get this!” she roared.

“You will. It’s a run-through,” she said.

“Nothing sounds right! Even your playing doesn’t sound right, but I know that can’t be true.”

The words startled Keira. She knew she’d hit a few wrong notes, and even the ones she’d played correctly had sounded limp and lifeless. She hadn’t realized that it was bad enough for Susan to have noticed.

“Neither of us are used to the piece yet, and we haven’t done a duet in a while. We should start again, from the beginning.”

Susan stared at her. “You’re telling me my ears aren’t broken?”

Keira shrugged, and turned back to her piano, overwhelmed with the desire to defend herself. “Everyone’s allowed to have an off day, right?”

“Except you. You don’t have off days.”

Keira spun around, ready to challenge Susan.

The air in the room shimmered, like the sort of heat mirage that cropped up over the blacktop on a scorching summer day.
Except it was indoors. And it was March. Keira’s stomach roiled in time with the shimmering. She stretched out a hand to steady herself and her fingers found the piano’s keyboard. The clash of discordant, high-pitched keys made it sound like the instrument was shrieking.