Page 7 of House of Hearts
I hate the traitorous flip in my stomach at the way his fingers tighten on my shoulder. He hurries to shut the door behind us, but Sadie wedges her fingers in the gap.
“Oh, yeah, classic Calvin,” she spits into the crevice, her glacial eyes rolling from him to me. “Not even the first day of school and you’re going to go make out with some random girl in lieu of having any important discussions. This isn’t over.”
He pries her fingers off one by one, his expression sickly sweet. “Really? Because it seems incredibly over. Now, if you’ll excuse me, we’re going to need some privacy. Thirty minutes should do.”
With the last finger ripped off, he pushes his weight into the door, and his smug expression smears right off. He groans and massages what can only be a brewing migraine.
I’m in the clock tower with Calvin Lockwell.
But all I can think about is the room growing tighter. Panic blackens the corners of my vision, constricting my view until it feels like the world has me in a choke hold.Em was here.Those three words spiral viciously in my skull, a nasty reminder of what happened and a taunt of all the things I still don’t know. One thing is for certain: She climbed these very steps to the top, stood on the ledge, and was pushed off.
I fan myself to get my shit together. I’m sure my cheeks are turning a scalding, awful red, and my hair has gone sweaty on my scalp.
Calvin glances up from his headache. His amber eyes sweep over my skin, and he recoils at the very sight of me.
“Don’t act so nervous,” he whispers, pushing past me for the staircase. He doesn’t bother stopping to glance back at me. He carries on like he’s seen more than enough. “I’d never dream of kissing you.”
3
I’ve got to hand it to Calvin—his ego is so enormous that I momentarily forget why I was nervous in the first place. My anxiety takes a back seat to rage.
“Who said I want to kiss you?” I ask as I climb after him, and yes, okay, I’m secretly thrilled I got the question out without stammering.
He rolls his shoulders—shaking free all the imaginary daggers I lodged into his back—and throws a cursory glance in my direction. “You wouldn’t be the first.”
Ha.Ha.The man is Narcissus in the flesh: beautiful but too aware of the fact. If he wasn’t spoiled and rich, I’m sure I’d be another lovestruck fool clamoring in his wake, but I know better. Falling for a boy like Calvin is the same as losing your footing on a ledge, a dizzying free fall and a crushing blow you can’t come back from.
The way he looks at me, you’d think I was the scum beneath his shoes. That has me balling my fists and cataloging all the things wrong with him.
For starters, he bites his nails. I can see jagged crescents where his teeth ripped them off. There’s a particularly angry wound on his pinkie where I’m guessing it bled earlier.
His nose is also upturned—as stuck up as the rest of him.
Oh yeah, and I think his brother murdered my friend.
“I can feel you staring at me.” He freezes with his hand on the banister and forces me to stop in my tracks. “You’re not subtle.”
I avert my eyes and try to hold my tongue. It doesn’t work. “I’d assumed subtle was off the table when you said we needed thirty minutes of alone time.”
“Touché.” His voice echoes, the sound rippling like water. The tower around us might not be massive, but it certainly feels like an eternal climb upward.
I search for the scuff of Emoree’s shoes on each step, something that would mark the memory of her forever. The way Paleolithic humans have come and gone, but their lives are still spelled out in chalk lines on cave walls.
There’s nothing to see here. Her memory has rinsed right off.
“Well, this is it,” Calvin says with an exaggerated flourish at the lookout. The landing is a welcome reprieve after all that climbing. An arched cathedral-style window sits to the left of me, the glass fogged from time but transparent enough to showcase the full scope of the school. It’s predictably breathtaking, but it’s not what I’m looking at. I’m gazing up at the next level of stairs, hypnotized by the spiral railing ascending into the shadows.
“What’s up there?”
Calvin hesitates. His jaw clenches ever so slightly as he follows my gaze. “More stairs.”
“Where do the stairs lead?”
He toys with his collar and loosens his tie at the throat. “The pearly gates. It’s amazing, really. It goes on forever into the sky, and babycherubs wait for you on the final floor. I’ve been told they play the harp.”
“Okay, fine, I get it. You’re not going to tell me.” I’m trying not to lose my cool again.
There’s a pregnant pause before he asks, quieter, “Why do you want to know?”
