Unbound (12 page)

“Yea?”

“I heard you and Mike broke up. Is that true?” She had a bit of a sneer in her voice.

“Yes it is. Mike’s an asshole so I dumped him,” I said very matter-of-fact. She seemed surprised at my bluntness. I think she had expected me to deny it or at least seem sad. Mike was the farthest thing on my mind right now.

“Really? What happened?”

“He’s just your typical pig-headed man.” I smiled, trying to be polite.

“Oh, want to give me more details?” she asked with a laugh. I just realized that the rest of her friends were looking at me.

“Not really.” Natalie actually looked shocked. She was used to getting what she wanted from people she felt were underneath her socially. “Sorry, but something just happened and I’m really busy.” I turned back to my friends and the list that they were still reading. Natalie said something but I didn’t hear her clearly enough to know what she said, and I didn’t care. I was able to eat half my apple before lunch ended.

***

I was rereading the papers the lawyer had given me as I walked into the hospital. I didn't really know what I was looking for. He had gone over everything with me in extreme detail. I guess I was hoping for some secret clue hidden in the small font that would explain the reasoning behind all this. I flipped to the handwritten letter from Aunt Estelle. This was the most compelling and confusing part of it all. I got in an elevator and pressed the button that would take me to the third floor. Normally I don't like elevators, but I was too distracted to care right now. I was so distracted, in fact, that I didn't even notice Ethan walking down the hall until I ran into him. Literally. I didn't even hear him coming until I smacked against his firm chest. My nice, neat papers folded on impact.

“Anora!” He sounded happy, and not as surprised as I was. He must have noticed me way before I noticed him.

“Ethan, hi.” I looked up at him. The attractive older man he was with the first time I saw him was standing next to him. His face was scraped up and his arm was in a sling. I smiled politely at him. He smiled back, but looked annoyed.

 
Or maybe in pain. Or maybe both.

 
I looked back to Ethan. He had a less obvious bruise under his left eye. I was curious as to what happened but didn’t feel it was my place to ask. “How are you?” I asked, remembering my manners.

“Uh, been better,” Ethan said with a smile. “What are you doing here?” He looked down at my breeches and boots. “I’d guess you were in a horseback riding accident but you look fine.”

“Yea, I’m ok. I’m here to see my mom.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Is she sick?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Actually, she’s a doctor. I just had to give her these.” I waved the papers in the air.

“Oh. I see.” Ethan didn’t ask what they were about, thankfully. “This is my dad.” He turned towards the man. “This is Anora.”

“Nice to meet you.” I smiled again. “You work at the University with my dad then. He’s an anatomy professor. Ethan told me you taught history.”

“Yea, I am, but this is my first year and I’m afraid I don’t know too many of the other professors yet.” He looked at Ethan with impatience. “I’ll be in the car.” And then he left. Ok, that was a little strange. I blinked and turned back to Ethan. He was wearing that black leather jacket that looked so good over his muscular arms and shoulders. Under that, he had on a blue tee shirt that was tight enough to emphasize just how well built he was. His brown hair was a little messy today, which was incredibly sexy on him. Without wanting to be obvious, I traced my gaze down his body and saw that he looked amazing in all aspects in the dark jeans he was wearing. He even had on black motorcycle boots. He could easily play the rugged, sexy, bad-boy in a movie.

“You have horses?” Ethan asked, and I snapped my head up to look into his beautiful brown eyes.

“Yea, two.” I nervously shuffled the papers around. “Mystery is my favorite horse. He’s an Arabian. And then I have a Quarter Horse named Neptune. She was supposed to be for my brother but he just wanted a horse because I had one, and now I get to take care of her, but she’s really a sweet girl,” I said rather quickly. I do that when I’m nervous, and I hate it. I wasn’t sure where the butterflies in my stomach came from either.

“That’s awesome. So do you ride a lot?”

“Every day if I can. I’m surprised you knew these were breeches.” I motioned to my pants. They weren’t the traditional tan; instead they were black with a blue stripe going down the outside seams of each leg. “Most people think I’m just some weirdo wearing colored leggings and boots.” I smiled. “I think it’s kinda funny when they do, though.”

Ethan smiled back and said, “Well, I like the pants. You look good in them.”

I could feel my cheeks flush. I looked back at the papers, thinking it odd that he had dodged answering how he knew they were breeches. I could feel Ethan’s gaze on me.

“Do you want to go out sometime?” he asked. Taken completely off guard, I gaped at him for a second.

“Yes,” I finally said, though I wasn’t sure if he even heard me. “Yea that would be…” -amazing, spectacular, ohmigod- “…fun.” The butterflies weren’t flapping around as much anymore. Actually, the more I looked into Ethan’s eyes, the calmer I felt.

“Great. What are you doing Friday night?”

Automatically I started to say ‘nothing’ but remembered I had to go to Indiana. I held the papers up again to prove I wasn’t lying. “My great aunt died. I’m actually going to be in Indiana this weekend.” Well, I would be as long as I got permission from my parents.

“Oh, I’m sorry about your aunt.”

“Thanks and its ok. I feel bad saying this, but we weren’t close. I barely knew her. You can’t miss what you didn’t know, right?” Ethan shrugged in agreement. “What about next the weekend?” I cautiously asked.

“Or before?”

I couldn’t help but smile. “Well, tomorrow I’m having dinner with my family. But Thursday I don’t have anything, except going to the barn.” I considered asking Laney to take care of my horses for me. God knows she owed me since I’d taken care of Abra for her many, many times. But no, I was definitely not going to skip out on something I loved for a boy I had just met. In fact, I wanted to test him a bit. “You could meet me at the barn, if you want. That way you can see my horses.”

“Deal.”

“Ok, it’ll be around five then, so I have time to come home from school and change.”

“Great. Call me when you get home?”

“No,” I said shortly, and Ethan looked surprised for a second. “You call me at four-thirty.” Just in case he changed his mind, I didn’t want to feel stupid or disappointed by getting his voice mail. I’d had enough of feeling rejected lately. But this also meant that I’d have to wait around for his call. I gave him my number regardless.

“I better go find my dad. I‘m glad you ran into me.”

“Yea, me too.” We both stood there, looking at each other for a few seconds. A nurse walked past us and obviously checked Ethan out. Surprisingly, I felt a bit jealous.

“Hello,” she said coyly to him. He smiled back, hopefully just to be polite. He quickly turned his attention back to me. “See you Thursday.”

“Bye.” Dazed, I stood rooted in my spot and watched, with guilty pleasure, Ethan leave. I shook myself back to reality and continued down the hall to Mom’s office. She, of course, wasn’t in there. I sat down on one of the two red, padded arm chairs that were angled to face her desk. This was where people sat when she told them that they or a loved one had a brain tumor. Echoes of sadness radiated throughout the room. I closed my eyes and forced up my mental shields. Everything was quiet after that. I wished I had brought something to read. With nothing else to do, I let my mind wander.

The entire situation surrounding Aunt Estelle’s death was mystifying. I didn’t know how in the world she had that much money to begin with, and I don’t know why she would have left it to me. Rewind a few days and I had even more to think about; the frightening dog, the shadow, and most recently, the ghost.

 
In a strange way, I was almost grateful for all this weird stuff to have happened; it kept Mike off of my mind. Or at least it had, until I just thought that thought. When I really thought about it, it hurt. But it didn’t hurt in an I-miss-my-true-love way, since in fact, I never felt like I loved Mike at all. It hurt in a damaging self-esteem way. I felt stupid and naive and taken advantage of. Simply put, it made me feel like a loser who was only good for one thing.

 
Feeling sorry for myself wasn’t going to erase the past. I should be happy. I had a date—kind of, at least— with the gorgeous Ethan. I was curious as to why someone as beautiful as him would want to go out with me. Did he have the same intentions as Mike? I didn’t think I had a flashing sign above me that said “easy,” but who knew? Just as I was telling myself I should start wearing baggy jeans and sweaters, Mom came in.

“Anora! What are you doing here? Is everything ok?” She looked truly startled.

”Didn’t that lady tell you I called?”

“What lady? And no, I didn’t know. Is everything ok?” she repeated.

“Actually no, Aunt Estelle died.”

Mom’s face changed from relief and then back to looking startled. “Oh.” She gathered her composure. “Well, she was very old. But how do you know?”

“Her lawyer came and told me at school. He pulled me out of class and everything.” I smoothed out the papers that wrinkled when I smashed against Ethan. Thinking about him made me smile. I quickly wiped it off my face. This wasn’t a time for smiling, or thinking about a particularly attractive one. “Aunt Estelle left me everything.” Mom took the papers out of my hand. It felt like an hour passed as she read them over and over.

“I heard rumors,” she said. I wasn’t sure if she was talking to me or to herself; I didn’t say anything. “I heard rumors that she had a lot of money. I had no idea it was this much.”

We went over details, and I told the story about James Pearson just as I did with Harrison this afternoon. I asked her about going to Indiana over the weekend and she said she’d have to talk to Dad about it.

 
Finally I left for home. I was tired. Last night’s ghost adventure of course cheated me out of a few hours of sleep. Plus the extra efforts it took to keep my mental shields up was draining. Hunter was outside and ran to greet me. Dad was sitting in the living room grading papers. I gave him a very condensed version of what happened today and luckily Harrison and already briefed him on the details. I handed him the papers James had given me and said goodnight. Hunter followed me upstairs and jumped up and settled on my bed while I showered and brushed my teeth. I remembered that I needed to call Marie, debated if it was worth it or not and ended up dialing her number.

“Hi,” she said flatly when she answered.

“Hey girl. What’s up?” Ok, maybe I was trying too hard.

“Nothing much. Gavin just left.” Her voice had an icy pitch to it; she still hadn’t let today’s events go.

“Good. Well, not that he left, but good he was over I mean. How did your date go last night?”

“Really good actually.” She was sounded more cheerful as she spoke. No matter how mad she was, Marie loved to talk about herself. “Gavin is really into me. He was practically drooling just now.”

“Awesome! I need to meet him and make sure he’s good enough for you.”

“Yea, that’d be fun.” Neither of us said anything for a few seconds. Awkward.

“So you’re not mad at me anymore then, right?” I asked slowly.

“I guess not.”

“Good, ‘cuz I hate it when you are.”

“I just feel like you are trying to upstage me.”

“What? How am I upstaging you?”

“Oh, come on Anora. You get dumped and then I start dating someone and you’re jealous. So you had to outdo me.”

“Oh my God! Marie, I didn’t plan my aunt’s death!” I was too tired to do this, and Marie as just being stupid.

“Fine, you’re right. I’m sorry. It’s just not fair.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way, but what can I do about it?”

“I don’t know.” There was another silence. I debated telling her about my running into of Ethan and decided it would be a bad idea right now. Finally, she spoke. “Anora, I’m not mad, ok?”

“Ok.”

“I told Gavin I’d call him, so I’ll see you at school tomorrow. Night”