Page 50 of Distortion
He pulls my hair and uses my gasp to slide his tongue into my mouth. It mingles with mine, gentle now. Coaxing.
A thick arm snakes around me and draws me closer, making me shiver, but it’s not from fear or revulsion. A sound finally escapes me, a breathy, muffled moan.
And the spell is broken.
He releases me like I’m poison and steps away from me so quickly that he bangs into the wall. He’s panting as hard as I am, and I can’t take my eyes off him.
He’s staring at me with a look on his face that could be surprise, shock, disgust, anger or arousal. Maybe all of them at once.
Without another word, he turns and flees the room. I stare at the place where he was, blinking slowly, trying to work out what just happened, why he would say those things and then kiss me.
Numbly, I touch my lips, finding them a little swollen as I walk from the room and down the stairs. I go outside and walk around to the back where the terrace is, where I can look over the tiered gardens toward the lake.
There’s no one out here, so I go down a few of the steps and around to the side where I can sit on the wall behind the tall, box hedge and no one can see me from the house. I used to come here a lot the year my mom married John.
I feel the card in my back pocket and stare out at the trees while I think. My mom never sent me anything, never called, never visited. I thought it was because of what had happened. What I’d done to that boy.
Mike Larson. He’d been a year older, but he was in my class because he was held back. He’d been one of the coolkids. He was usually the one to start calling me names in the hallway. He’d crush the ladybugs that used to wander around in the science classroom after he saw that it upset me. He threw worms at me, and then called me a freak when I didn’t get grossed out or squeal like the other girls. He pushed me in the hall. He tripped me a few times, too. But he always made sure it looked like it was me falling over my own feet. I was clumsy, so it wasn’t too far outside the realm of possibility.
He did Cross Country, too. We were running on the track that evening. I remember that. He tripped me on purpose and I was angry. I pushed him as hard as I could and he went down ...
I give myself a shake. There’s no point in thinking about this. Instead, I focus on my mom. Why would she have thought I didn’t want contact with her? Did John tell her that? Stoke? And the words she used in the card, the ones she’d crossed out. She was trying to protect me, but from what? The police? I think back to the night before she left me at The Heath. She said to be careful. At the time, I just thought it was what moms said, but it strikes me now as an odd thing to murmur while we were sharing perhaps the first hug where I didn’t immediately pull away.
And the notes I’ve been getting. I thought it was a poor joke, but what if it isn’t? Was my mom actually murdered?
Who would do that? Why?
The questions are mounting and I don’t know what to do. If she was killed, I should find out, shouldn’t I? Who else will if I don’t? The Novelles? Yeah, right. John is clearly moving on, Andrew is at Harvard or wherever, and Shade is ... well I don’t knowwhathe is, but he seems to have his hands full with the frat and his senior year. Plus, he doesn’t seem all that cut up about my mom’s death either, frankly.
I stand up, deciding to try to figure out what’s going on. Iwalk the other way to the front of the house and find Shade standing by the car. He barely looks at me as he opens his door and gets in. He starts the engine as soon as I’m in. I barely have time to buckle up before he’s revving the car out of the circular drive and down the road.
‘I’m still not feeling well,’ I mutter and he slows down minutely.
I narrow my eyes as I stare out the window, trying not to throw up while also thinking of how I might find out more about my mom and what happened to her.
I don’t know enough about how things work, I decide. I need help. I side-eye Shade and stifle a very British scoff.
As if.
But I do have a friend now and I can see Lu being a good sleuth. I think she has a shift with me tomorrow, so maybe I can find a minute to ask her then.
I’m so buried in my thoughts that I don’t notice at first that we aren’t heading back toward the campus. When we pull off the road into a car park ...parking lot, I give Shade a questioning look.
‘Where are we?’ I ask him.
‘Richmond National Park. We’re going to have some fun.’
I stare out the window, confused until I see Mav and Blake next to a large truck and ... is that a ... raft?
My heart sinks. I think I know what we’re here for, and it’s not going to befunat all.
Mav
I resistthe urge to grin when I see her face in the passenger seat of Shade’s car, and I wonder how he got her here. I can already tell this isn’t her kind of thing at all. I’ll bet he didn’t even tell her.
She gets out of the car slowly and regards the raft that we’re holding like it’s an alligator and not a glorified dingy.
‘I’ll stay here and wait,’ she murmurs, and Shade turns around to face her so fast that she takes a step back.
