Ascension (40 page)

Liz turned around slowly, dignified enough to be a queen.  All trace of her excitement from before had disappeared.  She had assumed an icy calm.  But, as soon as her eyes landed on the guy, every part of the illusion shattered.  Her resolve broke.  She grinned wildly, squealed out “Rob!”, and rocked right out of her seat to wrap her arms around him in a hug.

He picked her up, spun her around once, and set her down.  “It’s good to see you, too,” he said as her feet touched the ground.  I was sure the single spin hadn’t been enough to make her dizzy, but that was exactly how she looked.  And all she could do was smile stupidly up at him.

Without even asking for permission, he took her seat at the table, and patted his lap.  Liz jumped onto him quickly, and draped her arms around his neck.  Despite the intimacy, though, I could see some sort of… restraint… that she seemed to be fighting.

“It’s good to see all of you, too,” he said to the table, eyeing each girl in turn.  Then his eyes landed on me, and time seemed to stand still.

I didn’t realize it before, but he had the clearest green eyes I had ever seen.  Next to them, every other one of his features became completely secondary.  He could have been fifty pounds overweight and balding, and those eyes would still have held anybody entranced.  And that is how I felt at the moment.  With those eyes, he seemed to peer right into my soul, past all the insecurities and all the pretensions.  Somehow, he seemed to be looking right at
me
– the most unadulterated, most pure, most intimate and whole version of me I could ever imagine.  His gaze aroused a version of me I didn’t even know existed.  His eyes stood out against tanned, olive skin.  Their effect on me only grew as the seconds slowly ticked past.  I felt afraid and delighted, confident and uncertain, scared and elated, all at the same time.  Abruptly, I became all too aware of all the
other
eyes on me.  All the girls were staring, and Liz looked like she could have cut my throat right there.

I cleared my throat uncomfortably and looked down.  I could feel the heat rising in my cheeks.  Even a memory of that gaze made me flustered.  “What was that?” I asked softly.  I seemed to remember that a question had been asked of me, vaguely, in those few moments that time stood still.

“He asked,” Liz repeated, in a tight voice, “who the
new girl
was.”  The way she said ‘new girl’ matched the way she had emphasized Chris’s name, earlier.

“Oh.  I’m Tracy,” I said shyly, only now daring to look back up.  To my utter chagrin, the guy still hadn’t looked away.  He seemed to be completely oblivious to all the other girls.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said slowly, and very smoothly.  He extended his hand across the table, and I had no choice but to take it.  His grip was strong, and felt a perfect complement to my own lackluster shake.  “My name is Rob.”

“Rob,” I repeated quietly, letting the name roll off my tongue.  It was a simple name; a good name.  For those few seconds he had looked at me, every worry in the world seemed to disappear from my mind.  That was the only time I had ever felt so at ease.  At the same time, it was the only time in recent memory I had felt so utterly discomfited.  It was a crazy contrast, and one that made me feel completely unsure of what had happened.  I couldn’t remember the last time I was this much in my own head.

“Well, I’ve got to go catch my friends,” Rob said suddenly, standing up from the table and nearly dropping Liz in the process.  “Liz, it was good to see you.  Same for everyone else.  And it was very good to meet
you
, Tracy.” 

I only looked up once I was sure he had left, but my estimate had been unfortunately off.  In fact, the moment I raised my eyes was exactly the time Rob had decided to take one last glance over his shoulder, back at… back at me.  As our eyes met again, he flashed me a knowing grin, and disappeared in the crowd.

Instantly, I became aware of every girl’s eyes on me.  None of them looked happy.

“What was
that
?” Eve asked admonishingly.  Six pairs of eyes dug into me.  There was no doubting their intentions.  Anger.

“What was what?” I defended meekly, but I knew I was outmatched.  Great.  In less than a minute, I had completely blown all my chances of being friends with a group of girls who seemed to be at the center of social life here.  At least, now I could make my own decisions about who to be friends with, I thought humorlessly.

Liz stared at me in disbelief and opened her mouth to say something.  But then she stopped, took a deep breath, and visibly tried to compose herself.  It failed.  “Listen,” she said with unconditional vehemence.  “I know you’re new.  I know you don’t know us yet, or our friends.  That gives you one chance.  And, when I first met you, you seemed to be pretty cool.  That gives you a second chance.  And while I want to be friends with you – I think we all do – there has to be a mutual
understanding
between us.  And that understanding is this: If you ever do something like that again, we will all turn on you faster than you can believe.  Got it?  If you don’t watch your behavior in the future, all of us – all six of us – will work to make your entire stay at Oliver a living nightmare.  Understand?  So.  It’s up to you.  We can be either your best friends, or your absolute worst enemies.  And trust me, you don’t want any of us as your enemies.  Take this as your final warning: You will not—I repeat,
not—
ever speak to Rob by yourself again.  Do I make myself clear?”

I nodded weakly.  It wasn’t fair.  It’s not like I even
did
anything!  But all these girls seemed to think I had.  I barely even said a word to the guy.  But, somehow, they had already decided I was a threat to Liz’s relationship with him!  Whatever that relationship was – I was sure they weren’t girlfriend-boyfriend at this point, based least of all on what Liz told me during the walk to breakfast.  She just seemed a ditzy, little girl, jumping all around him, trying to win his affections.  But, then again, I admitted grudgingly, it’s not like I would act any differently, given the chance.

“So?” Eve asked provocatively.  “What’ll it be?”

I looked at her, and forced a smile.  “I don’t want to interfere,” I said genuinely.  “And I do want to be friends with you guys.  I’m sorry for what just happened.  I’ll make sure it doesn’t occur again.”

“Great!” Madison exclaimed, and the pressure seemed to disperse instantly.  “We want to be friends with you, too.”  All the other girls broke into smiles, nodding their heads and agreeing.  Even Liz, who looked most reluctant, cracked a smile.

“See that it doesn’t,” she said, “and you’ll have a great time here.”

I walked back to the dorm by myself.  All the other girls had decided to go hang out for a bit at the beach, and while they pressed me to come, I excused myself early.  I had some things to think about.

The first thing I wanted to do, because I had broken a promise, was patch things up with Chris.  I was unsure why he had stormed away like that after seeing me, and I wanted to get the story from him.  After the warning Liz issued me about Rob, I didn’t want to press my luck and ask
her
about Chris.  Apparently, there was some sort of animosity between him and the girls I had just met.  I wanted to get his side of events.

At the same time – no matter what I promised the others – I just couldn’t get Rob out of my mind.  Who was he, to spark such a protective and jealous response from the others?  Was he older than me, younger, the same age?  Rob definitely seemed at least as old as we were, if not older.  Maybe he was an athlete.  Where did he come from? How long had he known Liz? Just what
was
the history of their relationship?  But… more importantly: Why had he looked at me like that?

That
was the thing that weighed most on my mind.  If he had some sort of relationship with Liz, why would he so blatantly stare at me?  Maybe that was his way with people.  Then again, from the extremely jealous reaction that he provoked, maybe there
was
no history with Liz.  Maybe she just became threatened by the most innocuous thing.  It wasn’t even my fault!  I didn’t provoke him in any way.  Even if I did lose myself in his eyes… well, nobody was safe from that mysterious gaze!

I didn’t want to do anything that might cross Liz – or any of the other girls.  Like I told them, I
did
want to be friends with them, and despite the blunder with Rob and their subsequent reaction, they all seemed like fun, exciting girls to be around.  They were
definitely
the ones in the know at this school, and I didn’t want to fumble away my chance to become ingrained with them before I even got to know them.  If, over time, it turned out they were nothing like me… well, I would deal with that when I got there.

But again, there was the question of Rob.  Why oh why had he stared at me like that?  Who was
I
to him?  I felt chills run down my spine.  When was the last time I had spent so much time thinking about a boy – and a
forbidden
one, at that?  I shook my head.  Never, of course, which is what made it all so exciting and uncertain and new.  Rob was an enigma.  And he was one that I was determined to solve.

The door to the dorm clicked open as my student card came within range, and I hurried up the stairs to my room.  I was so entrenched in my thoughts that I barely noticed Ashley storming down the stairs, coming right at me.  At the last possible moment, I jumped out of the way, and her shoulder brushed mine unkindly.  If I hadn’t glanced up at that last moment, she would have slammed right into me – as if I didn’t even exist!  I looked after her.  Just what
was
her problem?

I reached the third floor and looked around.  A few doors were still open.  I could hear somebody playing music from a higher storey.  Chris’s door was closed.  I knew the chances of him coming back to his room right after what happened in the cafeteria were low, but it was the only place I knew to look for him.  I knocked on his door once, and waited.  Nothing happened.

I counted to ten, and knocked again, louder this time.  Still, there was no response.  I sighed.  I knew the odds of him being here right now were low, but I had still hoped that maybe…

I heard movement on the other side of the door.  It was hushed, though, as if the owner didn’t want anyone to know he was there.

“Chris!” I said loudly.  “Chris, it’s me.  I wanted to talk to you about what happened earlier.  Please open the door!”

Nothing.  There was not another sound on the other side of the door.  Perhaps I’d imagined it?  I knocked again. 

“Chris, I’m sorry if you’re mad!  I don’t know what happened in the cafeteria, and I wanted to talk to you about it.  Are you there?”

Again, nothing.  Maybe he really wasn’t there.  And I didn’t feel like yelling a whole apology through the door loud enough for the entire floor to hear.  Suddenly, I got a great idea.

I went over to my room, fumbled through my pocket for the key, and opened the door.  Then, I went to my desk, where I had halfway started unpacking my belongings.  I grabbed a pen, and ripped a piece of paper out of a notebook.  I wrote a short note on it:

Chris,

Sorry about missing breakfast.   I’ve got the rest of the day free.  Give me a call!  617-881-9490.

Tracy

There.  At least now, if he wanted to talk, he would have my cell.  Speaking of which, I saw that it had finally charged, and picked it up from my bed.  Flipping it open, I saw that I had nearly a hundred unread messages.  I started scrolling through them.  The first two were from my mom, telling me she loved me and wishing me a good stay, but the rest
all
came from Kyla, my best friend back home.  I chuckled as I read through them.  They got more and more frantic as I got toward the end, asking – no, demanding – that I call as soon as possible.  Smiling at the memory of home, I sent her a brief message saying that I’d been super busy but would finally call later today.  Before the phone was even halfway to my pocket, it buzzed with a new notification.  I opened it again, and looked at the message:

Don’t skimp on me this time!  And get ready to dish!  XOXO K

PS: I’m still your best friend ;)

Hah.  That made me smile again.  I put the phone in my pocket, and left my room, taking the note with me.  I slid it under Chris’s door as I passed by, and hoped he would get in touch sooner rather than later.  I thought I had dealt with him as best I could, at least for now, and could switch focus to the other things swirling through my mind.

I went down the stairs, passing by a few kids on their way up, and came out the front door.  It wasn’t yet noon, but the courtyard in front of the dorms was already busy.  In the middle, a group of guys were playing ultimate Frisbee.  Most of the benches at the sides were filled with kids reading or talking in groups.  I saw one girl strumming a guitar under the shade of a nearby tree.  Beside her, a couple was sitting cozily in each other’s arms.  For some reason, that made me think of Rob.