Asylum (54 page)

            “Sam
told me that it was pretty much all guys ever thought about,” Chloe said
quickly, her face flushed again in embarrassment.

            “Sex?”
Seth clarified, smiling down at her.

            Chloe
nodded, examining her fingernails.

            “Well,
it’s definitely one thing we spend a lot of time thinking about,” he admitted,
still grinning, “but not the
only
thing.”

            “What
else?” she asked.

            “Hockey,”
Seth said solemnly.

            Even
Chloe, nervous as she was, couldn’t help but laugh.  He brushed past her,
picked up a clock next to his bed,, and set the alarm.

            “Hit
the light, Clo,” he ordered, setting the clock down and lifting the comforter
on his bed.

            She
did as she was told, and a second after flicking the light off, she heard his
mattress creak as he got into bed.  She crossed the room, and found that he was
holding the sheets up for her to crawl in.

            The
bed felt like ice compared to his skin.  Chloe snuggled against his side,
tucking her cold toes beneath his warm leg.  He wrapped an arm around her, and
drew her closer still, her head rested on his arm.

            “I
love you,” she whispered.

            “I
love hearing that,” he whispered back.

            “I
love you,” she said again.

            “And
I love you,” he answered, pressing his lips against her forehead.

            “I
kind of expect Sam to come busting in and demand that we do shots with her
right now,” Chloe admitted, still whispering.

            He
chuckled deep in his throat, she could feel it where she lay against his chest.

            “What
am I going to do with you?” he asked, still in a quiet voice that suggested
they might be overheard.

            “You’re
going to have to put up with me,” she answered. “for a long time, because I’m
not going anywhere, either.  You’re going to have an awful time getting rid of
me.  I’ll end up being the crazy ex-girlfriend that calls and hangs up on you
twenty times a day and sends you a pig’s heart with a dozen roses every
Valentine’s day.”

            He
laughed quietly again.

            “Are
you pretty tired?” he asked.

            “I
should be, I know I should…and you should be too.  You should, you have a game
tomorrow,” she paused for a moment, and then pressed her face against his
side.  “but I’m not for some reason.  I keep feeling like I’m going to wake up
any second, and be in my room again with Sam snoring in the next bed.  I don’t
want to wake up!  Oh Seth, I don’t know if I feel awful or if I feel good!” she
admitted.

            “Why
would you feel awful?” he asked.

            “Because
you’re so…you’re so perfect!  You’re so wonderful and amazing, and I’m so…I’m
such a mess!  Look at all the trouble I caused tonight!  You should have some
perfect, normal girlfriend…you should have a perfect normal life.  Instead,
you’re dragging me to a priest in the middle of the night.  You’re dating
someone that used to live in a bonafied nuthouse!” she whispered quickly.

            “Normal
is overrated,” he said.  “And besides…my Mom likes you.”

            “Your
Mom likes everybody!” she retorted.

            “My
mom
tries
to like everybody,” he corrected her.  “It doesn’t always
work.  You should have seen it when I brought my last girlfriend I brought
home.  Carrie made the mistake of telling my mom that she was a vegetarian, and
wouldn’t even try the all- vegetable pastie, my Mom made for her, because of
the lard in the crust.  You’ve never seen such passive-aggressive niceness!”

            Chloe
giggled, but the name stuck in her head.  Carrie, Carrie was an ex-girlfriend. 
She assumed, for some reason, that it was the one who had slept with the
professor.

            “Clo,
if you’re not too tired, I want to tell you something,” he changed the subject.

            “Not
too tired, go ahead and tell,” she said.

            “I’ve
got a plan.”

            “What
kind of a plan?”

            “About
us.  I was thinking…we’ll probably lose the money we paid for housing this
semester, but we can get an apartment.  Somewhere on campus.  They usually do
twelve month leases.  Mike’s got a whole house off of Main Street that he rents
with another guy and they only pay five hundred a month.  We can do that, live
there this summer.  I’ll find work somewhere around town, and we don’t have to
stay here, in this dorm any longer.  We can be out by next week!” he said.

            “Seth,
you’re not going to be here this summer, what about study abroad?” she reminded
him.

            “Not
important,” he answered quickly.  “There’ll be lots of time to-”

            “No! 
No, there won’t be!” she cut him off.  “No! That’s the last thing I’m going to
agree to!  You…rearranging your whole life to make me feel better!  Absolutely
not!”

            “We
can still get a house or an apartment somewhere, even if I left, I could still
leave you money to help with-”

            “No,
don’t,” she chided him.  “Really.  I’m fine here.  I LIKE Kirkbride Hall. I
like my vulgar, wild, drunken roommate, and having you right down the Hallway. 
I like this!  It’s normal!  It’s college!”

            “Clo…you
were possessed by a ghost that, apparently, haunts our dormitory.  I don’t want
to take that chance…that something could happen to you, that you could be
hurt.”

            “You
mean, George?” Chloe asked.

            She
closed her eyes and listened to the silence in the dark room for awhile.

            “Seth,
George wasn’t trying to hurt me.  He was trying to help, and besides…I’m pretty
sure he’s gone now,” she said.

            “How
do you know?” he asked.

            “Because
he did what he wanted to do.  He made sure someone had the information to keep
the battle going, to fight the bad ones.  George is gone now. He left at Father
Andrew’s house.  He was outside of the building, lost his point of connection
to our world,” she said slowly.

            “I
don’t understand any of that,” he sighed.

            “Don’t
worry about it,” she soothed.  “George…well, somehow I have this feeling that
he’s gone on to something better.  He must have.  There was this light that I
saw…”

            She
wasn‘t ready to put what she saw into words.  George had admitted faith in
something more than the human experience could prove.  She was sure she had
seen it.  He
must
have found it.  He had fought on the side of right, he
must
have obtained his reward.  Imagining that he had expanded into
nothingness was too terrifying to contemplate.

            “Well,
at least it’s over now,” Seth agreed.  “It’s all done with, and someday, this
will be something we won’t even have to talk about.”

            “Mmmmm,”
Chloe said.

            “Clo?”
he asked.

            Chloe
made her breathing slow and even. 

            “Right,
Clo?” he prodded.

            “Mmmmm…”
she answered snuggling deeper against his chest.

            “Clo,
you don’t fool me,” he said.

            She
let the silence hang, hoping he would forget his question, or really believe
that she had fallen asleep.  She made sure to keep her breath deep and regular.

            “CLO!”
He used his arm to shake her violently.

            She
caught her breath and pretended to wake up.

            “Wha…?”
she asked sleepily.

            “Tell
me that it’s over now, please” he reminded her.

            “That
it’s over now, please” she mumbled.

            “Be
serious,” he told her.

            “Awww,
Seth, I’m soo tired,” she complained, carefully measuring the amount of
unconcerned whine she added to her voice.

            “No,
babe,” he whispered back, “not good enough, promise me.”

            Chloe
pushed herself away from him, and rolled over onto her side, giving him her
back.  He wrapped his arm around her again, and pulled her against himself.

            “Clo…?”
he whispered.

            She
turned back, placing her hand against his face, then running her finger down
the line of his jaw, across his neck…down his chest.  She felt him shiver under
her touch.  She kissed his chin, the spot where his jaw met his neck, the
hollow spot between the back of his ear and a neck muscle. 
Either this, or
bring up hockey
, she thought, trying not to giggle.  He kissed her in
return, under her chin, lips against her neck.  His hand skimmed smoothly up
her side, across the curve of her hip, the indent on her side, between the hip and
the gradual upward plane of her torso, coming to a rest under her arm, and then
slowly running down, across her chest.  His weathered hand rough against the
soft silky fabric of Sam’s nightgown.

            “Clo…
come on, promise me-”

            She
pressed her lips against his, effectively stemming his request.

            Seth
broke away first.

            “That’s
a ‘no’ isn’t it?” he decided.

            “Ssshhhh…”
she hushed him, reaching to try and kiss him again.

            He
pulled farther away.

            “No,”
he said. 

            Chloe
pulled away, feigning hurt.  It had to be past four in the morning.  He was
trying to bring up something that would take way too much time to explain.

            “Why?
Why won’t you let it go?  You heard Father Andrew, all his talk about the Devil
being sneaky and all that.  You’re messing with something you shouldn’t.”

            “It
will never leave me alone,” she murmured.  “I don’t have a choice.  I’m part of
this.  I wish you didn’t have to be, but I
have
to.  I was
born
into this.  My dad knew it, and I’m starting to think…I’m starting to think,
maybe my Mom does too.”

            “Clo…”
he pleaded.

            “I’m
staying put,” she cut him off.  “And I’m going home this summer…maybe sooner, I
have to…and you’re going to Costa Rica, and we’re going to be fine.”

            He
didn’t say anything, just let out a long sigh that tickled the back of her
neck.

            “Okay,”
he said.  “Can you promise me that you won’t go looking for it…without me? 
That you won’t try to handle it on your own?”

            “I
promise,” Chloe said quickly. Though in her head, a hundred objections flew
up.  She would never really be alone.  What was it George had said…something
about how when you fight on the side of right, you’ll always find help? 

            “Never
by myself again,” she agreed.

            “And
no more secrets,” he mumbled against her back, already losing the battle
against exhaustion.

            “Mmm-hmm,”
Chloe soothed.

            She
wasn’t sure if he heard. He was already breathing the slow regular breaths of
deep sleep.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

            One
more secret, she thought, staring at the ceiling hours later.  One more, a
secret she had only begun to guess it, and she wasn’t really sure she was ready
to share it.  It had to be just hers, for a little while longer.

            Chloe
glanced at Seth.  He slept with his mouth slightly open, a strand of his long
dark hair stuck to his lips.  Carefully--slowly and carefully--she lifted his
arm and slipped out of the bed, dropping onto the floor.

            Her
eyes had long since adjusted to seeing in the faint light that filtered in
under the door from the hallway.  She moved through the room stealthily, grabbed
her room keys off the desk, cracked the door and slid out.  Down the hallway
she hurried, one hand on the wall, squinting against the suddenly bright
light. 

            She
was painstakingly careful not to make a sound as she opened the door.  She
crept through the room, keeping one eye on Sam all the while, finally reaching
her bed.

            She
knew right where it was.  Lifting up the mattress with one hand, she shoved the
other hand underneath and found the battered old paperback.

            Frankenstein.

            Although
she hadn’t wanted to believe George, his tale about the bad ones, the science
of an eternal body…he had struck an immediate chord.  The mysterious book she
had received for her thirteenth birthday.  Right before she started hearing the
voices, before her father had died.  It had reminded her of more than just the
obvious connection of the reanimated corpse.  There was also the inscription,
the one no one knew about.  She had never shown it to anyone.  To be honest, it
had always frightened her a little.