Page 43 of The Rebel of Raleigh High
18
ALEX
“Wake up,Passerotto. I made you something good. Alessandro, mi amore, open your eyes.”
The smell of caramelized sugar and the sound of my mother's voice wakes me. For a drowsy, blissful moment, I am six years old, and my mother is stroking a feather along the bridge of my nose, making me squirm as I surface from my dreams. She used to do that all the time, even though she knew it made me mad and tickled like crazy. I rub at my face, scratching my nose, eyes opening slowly, and I see the full-bloomed roses, wrapped in vines, winding up my arm, and it all comes flooding back. Eleven years, rushing in, pressing down on me, replaying the greatest hits of my life, which, up until last night haven't been all that fucking great.
I wasn’t paying much attention to the cabin last night when Silver showed me into a small bedroom on the ground floor, complete with bunk beds and Hulk sheets. Max’s room, she told me. Turns out her brother is the same age as Ben. Now, I get up, kicking my way back into my jeans and sliding my arms into my t-shirt, noticing that this morning is the first morning in a long ass time that I haven’t woken up with a stiff neck on the couch in the trailer.
Thereisa bedroom there. I could use the bed, but somehow climbing into it feels wrong. Three years, I slept on a two-inch thick mattress in Gary’s converted basement. He made a point of making sure I wouldn’t be comfortable, and so I made a point of getting accustomed to the cold and the ache in my bones when I woke as a fuck-you to the bastard. Now that I have no reason to mistreat my body and subject it to such uncomfortable conditions…I don’t know. It’s hard to stop saying fuck you to Gary, even though the motherfucker’s dead.
From the way the sun's pouring in through the windows, already climbed halfway up into the sky, it must be about eleven or so. Everything looks so different in the daylight. I wander down a narrow hallway, emerging into the living room, and I catch sight of Silver through the doorway, standing in the kitchen in front of the stove, stirring viciously at something. She hasn't noticed me yet, and I take a moment to watch her. Her hair's down. I have never, ever seen it down before. The light catches at it, highlighting individual strands of honey and gold, and I remember how good it had felt to bury my hands in the thickness of it last night. Too fucking good.
She’s wearing little blue shorts with ribbons tied into bows on either side of the legs, and a white t-shirt that’s so big it’s slipping off her, exposing one of her shoulders. She hums as she cooks, and I recognize the song. It’s ‘Vienna,’ by Billy Joel. So fucking weird. Weird that she even knows it. I don’t want to startle her, so I clear my throat, walking heavily across the living room, making sure she knows I’m coming.
She pauses for a second, but then carries on with her stirring, whisking at something in a pan.
God, she’s something else. I can’t bear how fucking beautiful she is. It cuts me down to the quick. I don’t even hide the fact that I’m staring at her. I’m never going to hide that she fascinates me, not ever again. “Good morning.” I can hear the amusement in my tone as I prop myself up against the kitchen’s door jamb. Stands to reason, since I’m highly entertained by the way today has started out—the two of us, together, in the middle of nowhere, alone. Feels fucking strange.
Aside from last night, we’ve never been alone like this. There have always been plenty of people within shouting distance. Other students. A teacher. Silver’s father. Here, there’s only me. Only her. She takes her sweet time turning around, and I can barely wait to see her face. God, I’m turning into such a fucking lovesick asshole puppy, I’m almost making myself sick. If Monty could hear me now, he’d drive his hand between my fucking legs, grab hard and squeeze, just to make sure my balls were still hanging there.
She's not wearing any make-up. Her eyes are bright and filled with nervousness, but the reckless grin she fires at me tells me that she's not going to kneel to her own apprehension today. “I'm making French toast and Crème Anglais,” she informs me. “Though you're probably a bacon and eggs guy. Scratch that. You probably down a quart of engine grease for breakfast, don't you?”
I smile, scrubbing a hand through my hair, trying to make it lie flat. I know it won’t, it never does, but it’s worth a shot. From the crooked smile and the hiked-up eyebrows, Silver’s not too sure about my crazy bedhead look. She prods a whisk in my direction. “You can eat, but then you need to leave. My parents will flip if they find a guy up here.”
I try not to notice the fact that she isn't wearing a bra and her nipples are peaked beneath the material of her shirt, but I am a guy, so that's basically impossible. My poker face is unrivaled, though. “Fair enough,” I tell her.
She looks deflated. “Fair enough?”
“Yeah. I plan on claiming most of your spare time, Silver. I don't want your parents ready to run me through with a pitchfork on day one.”
“I thought you might put up a bit of a fight.”
I give her a devilish smirk. It’s fucked up how easy it is to change gear on her. Stalking into the kitchen, I approach her, keeping my thoughts from my face. Still, I’m cautious as I place my hands on her hips. “You want me to put up a fight? You got it. I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying right here with you until Monday night. And when we go back to Raleigh, I’m going to kidnap you, and have you sleep at my place. I’m keeping you for myself, Silver. I’m never letting you out of my fucking sight. Don’t bother arguing. You’ll only be wasting your breath.”
She stares up at me with unfocused eyes, her lips slightly parted. Neither of us has commented on the fact that the whisk she's still holding in her hand is dripping some kind of yellow liquid onto the cracked linoleum floor.
“Uhhh. Okay,” she says on an exhale. “Fine.”
It’s my turn to repeat her. “Fine?”
A quick nod. “Sure. I mean…” She shrugs. “What my parents don’t know won’t kill them. And my dad liked you for some reason, even though you showed up at the house uninvited.”
Slowly, I lean down and kiss her. It's the lightest kind of kiss, the barest suggestion of one, our lips hardly making contact, but it seems to have a wild effect on Silver. Her eyes dance, alive and feverish. “Seems I have a bad habit of showing up uninvited,” I say.
“Are you handling me like I’m a china doll now?” she asks. “You can kiss me properly. I won’t break because of a kiss.”
I run the tip of my index finger lightly over her forehead, down the bridge of her nose, over the biteable swell of her lips, and then trail all the way underneath her chin and down the slope of her neck until I reach her collar bone. I've wanted to touch her so many fucking times in abstract, weird ways like this. She stands still, patient, maybe a little tense, as I stroke the pad of my finger into the small hollow at the base of her neck. I pull my hand away. “There are people out there who poison themselves on purpose,” I tell her. “Small doses, every day.”
She’s quick—doesn’t need me to explain how this piece of information is relevant to our situation. “You think I’m going to build up a tolerance to you? If you feed me small sips of you? You’re not poison.”
I nod, wetting my bottom lip, my eyes roving hungrily over her face. “Yes. Iampoison. And yeah. I’m a staunch advocate for too much too quick. That’s always been my M.O. but I’m willing to develop an iron will in patience to make sure I don’t fuck this up.”
She crooks an eyebrow at me, and I mirror her expression, making her smile.
Fuck. Me. Dead.
I made her smile.
