The Hourglass Door (18 page)

Chapter

11

I locked the door behind me and replaced the workshop key on the lintel. The air seemed colder now than it had before, cutting like a knife across my skin. I involuntarily rubbed my hand over my hip where Dante’s blood had dried on my dress. The fabric felt stiff and scratchy under my palm. I saw Dante’s footprints in the snow, leading away from the school, the gaps between the steps wide and uneven. He must have been running there at the end.

I sighed, torn between wanting to follow his footsteps and knowing I needed to get back to Jason and the dance. I glanced at my watch and tapped the face with my fingernail. The hands had frozen in place, pointing to midnight. There was no telling how long I’d been gone. Jason would be worried about me.

I gathered up my skirt and carefully picked my way over the icy parking lot to the courtyard in front of the school doors. I navigated through my thoughts just as carefully.

What had Dante meant about today being his birthday? Had he really said he’d been born in 1484? It would mean he was more than five hundred and twenty years old. That was impossible. Completely and totally impossible.

But then why had he chosen his words so carefully? He had treated the information like it was fragile. A truth that could break apart as soon as he spoke the words. A truth that could shatter our friendship.

But . . . five hundred and twenty-five years old? My mind shied away from the number.

My thoughts felt jumbled up in my head, everything unraveling the moment I tried to follow a single thought to its logical conclusion. I couldn’t make sense of anything.

The one thing I was sure of, though, was that my lips tingled as though Dante
had
kissed me. I ran the tip of my tongue across the edge of my lip and the tingling intensified. I tasted again the ghostly sweet pink flavor of the Midnight Kiss I’d swallowed at the Dungeon. I guessed I would have to wait a while longer for my wish to come true.

Valerie and V were kissing in the courtyard. He had her pressed against the school wall, his strong drummer’s hands curling around her hips. Valerie’s arms twined around his neck.

Embarrassed to have caught them in such an intimate embrace, I tried to slip past them into the school, but Valerie chose that moment to come up for air and she saw me.

“Hi, Abby. Where have you been? You missed everything!” Her eyes were dreamy and unfocused, fever-bright in the darkness of the night. V leaned closer, nibbling on her earlobe. “Jason’s looking for you, by the way.” She waved her hand in the general direction of the door before closing her eyes, succumbing to V’s attention once more.

Seeing them together made me even more uncomfortable and confused. Valerie
never
kissed on the first date. It was one of her unbreakable, unbendable, unbreachable rules. If Zo was not to be trusted—and after what he had done to Dante tonight, I was sure he couldn’t be—then could his band mates be any better? I bit my lip, worried. I’d have to talk to Valerie. Soon.

I pushed through the door and stopped in shock, frowning. Valerie had been right: I
had
missed everything. The dance was practically over. A few couples still lingered in front of the empty stage, but other than that, the only people in sight were the janitors, pulling down the torn pink and red streamers that dangled from the ceiling like tattered clouds. The harsh fluorescent lights reflected off the limp white balloons that drifted across the floor in some unseen breeze. The air seemed to hold the echo of Zero Hour’s music, and I thought I could hear the whisper of Zo’s voice haunting the almost empty room.
It’s time, my children . . .

Ingrained reflex made me look at my watch even though I knew it was broken. Startled, I saw that the hands had jumped from midnight to ten minutes past two. Could it really be that late?

I scanned the room once more and spotted Jason sitting on the far side of the dance floor. He was hunched over in his chair, his head resting in the palms of his hands. My heart clenched to see him so forlorn and alone.

I wove my way through the remains of the Valentine decorations, stepping over the torn banners and silver confetti scattered across the floor. “Jason?” I brushed my hand across his shoulder as I sat down in the chair next to him. “Are you okay?”

Jason looked at me with red-rimmed, bleary eyes. “No. I’m not.”

I withdrew my hand at the sharp tone in his voice. “I’m sorry—”

“You should be,” he snapped. “I can’t believe you would do this to me.”

“Do what?” I curled my hands into fists around my skirt. “What are you talking about?”

Jason’s mouth dropped open in honest surprise. “You left the dance over
four hours
ago. I looked everywhere for you. I was worried about you.” He shook his head. “If you didn’t want to come to the dance with me, you should have said so instead of just ditching me.” His bow tie hung around his neck in loose ribbons. He’d unbuttoned his collar and his cuffs. He looked like a wrinkled shadow of the Jason who had picked me up a lifetime ago.

“I did want to come to the dance with you. It’s why I’m here—”

“Now.” Jason’s mouth thinned as though he tasted something bitter.

“I’m sorry I was gone so long. I honestly didn’t know it was so late. I guess I lost track of time.”

“That seems to happen a lot when you’re with
him.
”

I blinked in surprise, too stunned by the acid in Jason’s voice to say anything.

“Isn’t that where you were? With
him?
With Dante?”

I pressed my lips together, wishing they would stop tingling. “Yes, I was with Dante. But it’s not what you think—”

Jason snorted.

“It’s
not
what you think,” I repeated firmly.

Jason looked down at his hands clenched into fists on his knees. “I wanted this to be a special night for us, Abby.”

“The night’s not over.” I tried to keep my voice light even though my heart thumped heavily in my chest. After a brittle silence, I finally said, “Do you want to get some hot chocolate or something?”

Jason ran a hand through his golden curls.

His silence hurt more than his curt words.

“Valerie said Zero Hour played. Were they good?” I asked, not really caring, but wanting to say something.

“Oh, yeah, they were great. They really know how to work a room. It was incredible. The highlight of the evening. The whole crowd got up and danced.” Jason pinned me with dark golden eyes. “Too bad I didn’t have anyone to dance with.”

“Don’t be like that.”

“Like what?”

I pursed my lips. “Do you want to hear my side of the story or are you just going to sit there passing judgment without all the facts?”

“Fine.” Jason leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest.

“Fine,” I repeated. I took a deep breath. “I went outside for some fresh air and I saw Dante and Zo get into a fight. Dante got hurt and I took him to the workshop office so I could bandage him up. We talked and then I came back to the dance. That’s it.”

Jason’s eyes narrowed in blatant disbelief. “That’s it? That’s the story?”

“That’s the
truth.
”

He shook his head, a dry laugh escaping his lips. “You’re amazing, Abby, I really mean that. I thought we were better friends than this. Zo was here all night playing with Zero Hour. How could he have gotten into a fight with Dante? When?”

“You don’t believe me,” I said, stung. “You think I’m lying.” Cold anger filled me. I covered the dried blood on my dress with my hand, tangible proof of the fight that would wipe the righteous anger from Jason’s face. I wanted to put his hand on the stain, make him feel the rough edges where the blood had soaked into the fabric, make him believe me, but I didn’t. I heard Dante’s voice, low and fierce in my memory—
This is between me and Zo.
Dante hadn’t wanted anyone else to know; whatever it was that had happened between them, well, it wasn’t my secret to tell.

“I’m not a liar, Jason,” I said hotly.

“I saw you, Abby,” he shouted. “I saw you with him. I saw him
kissing
you.”

“He didn’t—”

“Right. I know what I saw. It was worse than watching Valerie and V slobbering all over each other all night.” Jason shook his head. “I thought you were my best girl. I thought . . .”

I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. I’d never seen Jason this angry, this hurt. Tears tickled the back of my tongue. I swallowed them down. They tasted like salt, desiccating my throat.

“I waited for you for a long time. When you didn’t come back, I went looking for you. I walked around the whole school looking for you. And then I saw the light on in the workshop.”

My heart stuttered in my chest, threatening to stop beating.

“I was so relieved to find you.” Jason’s pale face looked like chalk. “And then I saw him standing behind you, his hands on you . . . your hands on him . . .”

“Jason . . .” My voice didn’t seem to want to leave my throat.

“I saw him lean over you and . . . and . . .”

“He didn’t kiss me,” I tried to whisper again.

Jason shrugged, a mere twitch of his shoulder. “Maybe not. But I bet you wanted him to.”

Now
my heart stopped.

“You know what hurts the most?” Jason asked. All the anger, all the hurt, had drained from his voice, leaving it flat and hollow. “That you never told me you were unhappy.”

“I wasn’t,” I protested, but we both heard the false note in my voice.

“I guess I knew this was coming. I guess I’ve known it since our birthday.” Jason pulled off his tie and shoved it into his pocket. “It’s why I wanted to wait to have our first kiss. So maybe you would kiss me like I was your boyfriend, and not like I was your brother.”

“Jason . . .”

“It’s okay,” he said, but we both heard the false note in his voice.

“Please.” I touched his hand. His skin was colder than snow. I looked into his hazel eyes and saw in their liquid golden depths the fading hope that maybe we could still be friends, and the firm knowledge that we certainly couldn’t be
dating
friends. I felt a sliver of my heart shiver with pain, shooting icy needles into the nerves of my fingers and thumbs. My fingers spasmed, clutching, desperately trying to hold onto something I knew I’d already lost. “I don’t want it to be like this.”

“It already is,” Jason said sadly, moving his hand out from under my fingers. His eyes held mine for a long time. They were the eyes of a stranger. “You look really beautiful tonight, Abby. I don’t know if I told you that yet.”

A lump lodged in my throat. “Thanks. You look nice in your tux too.”

He stood up stiffly. “It’s late. I should take you home.”

I wanted to say all the words that people usually said at times like this—
I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I still want to be friends
— but Jason and I had been so close for so long, the words were there without either one of us saying anything. I didn’t know if I was glad of that or not.

Instead, I rose and followed him silently across the floor. The tears I had swallowed finally spilled over my cheeks.

I looked over my shoulder, sure I would see a shadow-Abby and shadow-Jason still sitting in their chairs, holding hands and happy, the ghosts of who we used to be now that we were someone else. But the chairs were empty, adrift in a sea of broken paper hearts.

Chapter

12

It took exactly three hours and thirteen minutes for the news of Jason’s breakup with me to race through the school on Tuesday morning. I had hoped the Monday holiday would give me a little bit of protection from the gossip-mongers in the school. No such luck. I cowered at the back table of fourth-period world history, chewing on a hangnail, terrified of what the next two minutes would bring. The seat next to me—the seat that had been Jason’s all year—was empty, and I kept darting glances from his seat to the door. Jason hadn’t picked me up for school earlier—not that I had really expected him to—and we’d been careful to avoid each other in the hallways all morning. It was like some complicated dance that only couples who had broken up with each other could perform. I wondered if all couples, happy or not, were slowly dancing their way around each other toward this kind of inevitable, horrible, awkward end. It was a depressing thought.

History was the first class we had together. We couldn’t avoid each other anymore. The dance led to here, to now.

The door opened and Jason walked into the classroom. My heart chattered inside my cold chest. He glanced around the room, his eyes skipping right over me. He walked down the aisle between the black tables; for a moment I thought he was going to take his regular seat next to me, a grin on his face, and ask to borrow my notes. For one brief shining moment I thought everything could go back to the way it had been. I thought I could have my best friend back.