Filed to story: Kissed by Claw and Fang
His fingers start back on their massage like they never even stopped.
It frustrates me, but not enough to push when he has No Trespassing signs posted all over himself in huge black letters. Which says a lot more about him than he could possibly imagine.
We spend the next couple of minutes in silence as he massages my foot until the ache is almost completely gone. Only then, when his fingers finally still for good, does he say, “My eyes.”
My gaze darts to his. “What do you mean?”
“That’s what I got from my mother. My eyes.”
“Oh.” I lean forward until I can once again see the silver flecks against the darkness of his irises. “They’re beautiful eyes.” Especially when he’s looking at me the way he is now-a little bemused, a little intrigued, a lot surprised. “Did you inherit anything else from your mother?” I ask softly.
“I hope not.” His words are low, unguarded, and it’s the first time he’s ever been so open with me.
I search for something to say that won’t break the mood, but it’s too late. The second he registers what he said, Zane’s entire face closes up.
“I need to go,” he tells me, setting my foot gently on the bed before getting to his feet.
“Please don’t.” It’s barely more than a whisper, but the sentiment comes from deep inside me. I feel like I’m seeing the real Zane for the first time up close and personal, and I don’t want to lose that.
He pauses, and for a moment, I think he might actually listen to me. But then he’s reaching inside the pocket of his designer jacket and pulling out a rolled-up piece of paper that’s been fastened with a black satin ribbon.
He holds it out to me.
I take it with hands that I have to will to stay steady. “You didn’t have to-“
“It made me think of you.” He reaches up, takes a gentle hold of one of my curls, as has become his habit. But this time, he doesn’t stretch it out and let it boing back into place. Instead, he simply worries it between his fingers.
Our eyes meet, and suddenly the room feels about twenty degrees hotter. My breath catches in my throat, and I bite my lower lip in an effort to keep myself from saying-or doing-something we’re not ready for.
Except Zane looks like he might be ready for all kinds of things, with his gaze fastened on my mouth and his body swaying toward me just a little.
And then he’s reaching out, pressing his thumb against my lip until I get the hint and stop biting it.
“Zane.” I reach for him, but he’s already across the room, his hand on the doorknob.
“Rest that ankle,” he tells me as he opens the door. “If it feels better tomorrow, I’ll take you to my favorite place.”
“Which is?”
He quirks a brow, tilts his head. And doesn’t say another word as he slips into the hall and closes the door behind him.
I stare after him, the scrolled-up piece of paper he gave me still in my hand. And wonder how on earth I’m going to keep this beautiful, broken boy from cracking my already battered heart wide open.
The Uniform
Doesn’t Make the Woman,
But it Sure Does Bring
Out the Insecurities
Pants or skirt?
I stare at my closet and all the clothes neatly lined up in it, courtesy of my cousin. I know I should have done this last night, but after a giant plate of nachos followed by three episodes of
Legacies and a marathon gossip session over my jam-packed day, I didn’t have the energy to do much more than lie in bed and think about Zane.
I turn toward my desk-and the paper Zane brought me yesterday, which is lying directly under the copy of
Twilight he sent me. Not because I don’t like it but because I like it too much, and I don’t want to share it with anyone. Not even Macy or Heather.
It’s a page ripped straight out of a copy of Anaïs Nin’s journals-I don’t know which one, because the heading doesn’t say. I almost googled it yesterday to find out, but there’s something special about not knowing, something intimate about having only this one page of her diary to go by. To have only these words that Zane wanted me to see.
Deep down, I am not different from you. I dreamed you, I wished for your existence.
The page has a lot more than that simple phrase on it, but as I read and reread it about a hundred times yesterday, these are the words that jumped out at me over and over again. Partly because they were so swoon-worthy and partly because I’m starting to feel the same way about him. About Zane, whose deepest thoughts and heart and pain seem to so closely echo mine.
It’s a lot to take in at any time, let alone on my first day, when my mouth is dry and my stomach is churning with nerves.
Which is why I’m currently standing here, in front of my closet with absolutely no idea of what to wear. Because I obviously worried about the wrong first-day stuff…
Do the girls usually wear their uniform pants or skirts here? Or doesn’t it matter? I try to remember what Macy wore the last couple of days, but it’s all a blank besides the tropical-print snow pants she wore for the snowball fight.
“Skirt,” Macy says as she walks out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around her head. “There are wool tights to go with it in the bottom drawer of your dresser.”
I close my eyes in relief. Thank God for cousins.
“Awesome, thanks.” I slip one of the black skirts off the hanger and step into it, then add a white blouse and black blazer before going over to my dresser for a pair of black tights.
“If you wear the blouse, you’ve also got to wear the tie,” Macy tells me as she opens one of my dresser drawers and pulls out a black tie with purple and silver stripes on it.
“Seriously?” I demand, looking from her to the tie and back again.