Boy from the Woods (9781311684776) (8 page)

Julia
was pulled from her thoughts when her phone
vibrated briefly in her pocket. Probably another text message from
one of the gang.

She dug up
her phone but stopped
breathing when she
saw the notification on the screen. ‘1 new message.
Michael.’

The words
jumped out at her, making her heart rate speed up to a dangerous
pace. Thank God Gab
y wasn’t here to
witness her reaction – she’d probably have treated her to another
‘you-must-forget-about-him’ sermon.

With
trembling fingers she clicked on the message icon.

‘hey
j
ulia :) u got time 2 drop by l8er? x
mick’.

Julia
gawked at the X in front of his name.
It probably meant nothing. Nothing at all.
He just wanted to thank her because she’d saved him from an
untimely death in the middle of the woods. No cause for alarm.
Maybe his mom wanted to give her a fruit basket, or his dad wanted
to pin a medal on her.

And yet,
another voice in her head insisted differently.
See?
See,
he thought she was special. He wanted to meet up
with
her
after his terrible accident.

With a
frustrated sigh, she looked up from the screen, pondering her
options for a suitable reply to his message when she realized the
bus had reached her stop.
The doors were already
closing again.

“Wait!”
Julia called out to the front, hitching her bag on her
shoulder. “I need to get off here!” She caught the irritated frown
of the bus driver in the rearview mirror when she blocked the
sensor with her foot, causing the doors to swing open
again.

With a
flushed face, she
got off and sat down in
the bus shelter. ‘r u home @ 3?’ she typed out after long
consideration, leaving out her name or an X on purpose. Much better
to sound aloof for now.

She
was just getting up when her cell phone came to
life in her hand. Oh Lord – he was
calling
her. Julia swallowed the
lump in her throat. The vibration of the device seemed to buzz
through her entire body. Again and again it hummed in her palm like
a swarm of angry bees.

Th
e girl sitting next to her
glanced aside, a puzzled look on her face.
“Aren’t you
going to get that?” she asked.

“No. I don’t think I’m ready for it just
yet.”

Her neighbor laughed. “Let
it go to voicemail.
He might leave you a
message.”

Julia stifled
a nervous chuckle.
“Great idea.” She hurriedly got
up.
If she didn’t start walking now,
she’d be too late for her job interview, and it would all be due to
her mulling over Michael and his invitation. Muttering a curse, she
zipped across the bridge leading to the Old Town. Why oh why
couldn’t she just have heeded Gaby’s sound advice?
She
should have ignored his invitation. Why was it so hard to let go of
her obsession with him?
He’d treated her
like garbage. Did she have no self-respect?

Still
mentally bashing herself, she cut through narrow
alleyways to get to the main square, crossing it at break-neck
speed to end up in front of the bookstore at the strike of two.
Outside, Julia saw a mustached man stuffing a book display rack
with discounted paperbacks. She momentarily bent over to catch her
breath, then addressed him.

“Excuse me.”
S
he cleared her throat. “I’m here about
the job. Mr. Haider is expecting me at two.”

The man turned
around.
“Julia Kandolf?” he asked,
jovially extending a hand toward her. “I’m Martin Haider and I’m
the manager. Let’s go to my office.”

Julia entered
the bookstore and followed her possible future boss to an office on
the second floor. She’d brought her resume, which Mr. Haider
skimmed through while she was sipping the unavoidable ‘job
interview’ cup of coffee. Every now and then he asked her a
question. She liked him – he had a sense of humor and he didn’t
just ask her the dime-a-dozen questions she was used to.

“Who’s your
favorite author?” he wanted to know, handing her a second
cup
of coffee she didn’t dare
refuse.

Julia smiled. “Stefan
Zweig.
He can turn one small slice of
life into something grandiose. He makes you think twice about
common things.”

Martin nodded
enthusiastically, putting his signature on the form he’d been
filling out as if her answer had sealed the deal for him.
He extended his hand once more. “Welcome to the team! Can you
start the day after tomorrow?”

“Of course!”
She beamed at him. “Thank you so
much.”

“No problem.
Happy to have you on board. One of your
colleagues will do the job orientation with you.” Martin slid the
form across the table. “Could you fill out your details and sign
here, please?”

Once
Julia had left the bookstore, she dug up her
phone to send Gaby a text about her successful interview. ‘1 new
message. voicemail,’ the display told her impassively. With
nervously twitching fingers, she closed the notification and
started to type out a message to her friend. After sending it off,
she took a deep breath and called her voicemail.

“Hi Julia,”
Michael’s deep, sexy voice melted into her ear. “Of course I’ll be
home around three.
Come and have tea with me! See you
later.”

Brilliant move.
Julia turned as red as a lobster. In less than
twenty minutes, she’d be having tea with her high school obsession
and ignoring all of Gaby’s warnings. Michael would most likely be
home alone, because his parents both worked full-time.

Reluctantly,
she made her way off the square, wondering in despair where it had
all gone wrong. She’d been sort-of-ready to move on before she
became his savior in the forest. Why was she so impressed with the
fact he had stammered her name when she found him?
So
what
?

When Julia
rang the doorbell of the big house on Giselakai at five to three,
all courage had left her. She had
no
idea what she was doing here.
Just to be polite, she’d listen to Michael’s expressions of
gratitude and get the hell out the second she could.

“Grüss Gott
,” she stammered in
surprise when a woman in her fifties opened the door. She had
Michael’s green eyes. Julia thought she recognized the woman from
the graduation ceremony at school.
“Is – is Michael
home?”

“He’s expecting
you.”
The woman extended her hand. “I
wanted to personally thank you, Julia.
Without you,
things could have turned out quite differently.”

“You are most
welcome.”
She couldn’t stop a hint of
disappointment creeping into her voice. So this was the reason
Michael had invited her over. His mother wanted to thank her, plain
and simple. Julia wouldn’t be here with just Michael for company,
and he probably didn’t count on her staying for very
long.

“Why don’t
you go and see him upstairs?” Michael’s mother made an inviting
gesture.
“He’s in his room. And he’s doing much
better. His amnesia is gone.”

Julia blinked at
her.
“He... he’s got his memory back?”
Then why did he want to see her? He remembered everything about his
life – including the part where she had been completely
insignificant to him.

The woman smiled
radiantly. “Yes! Isn’t it wonderful?
Miraculous, even, according to the doctors.”

The joy
radiating from her face sadly wasn’t enough to make Julia equally
upbeat. She dragged herself up the stairs to the second floor with
a nervously hammering heart.

The last time
she’d walked these stairs, his hands had caressed her hips, his
mouth trailing a warm path in her neck.
Giggling and love-drunk, she’d tripped over the uppermost
step, and he had caught her in his strong arms.

Her eyes got
blurry. She only realized she was crying when she looked at herself
in the long mirror hanging on the wall next to Michael’s room. She
sniffled in frustration,
rooting around
in her bag for a napkin to wipe away her tears. Of course, she
shouldn’t give a hoot what Michael thought of her, but her
indifference to his opinion still didn’t mean she should make a
tear-stained entrance. She had more pride than that.

When she
pushed open his bedroom door at last, she did her best to keep a
straight face. “Hi,” she said softly.

Michael was
sitting on the edge of his bed, a bandage ar
ound his head. He looked up at her and her heart skipped a
beat. Once again, she had the feeling he was looking at her in a
new way.
As if he really
saw
her.

“Julia,” he replied,
equally soft.
He said her name with
obvious joy in his voice, and she couldn’t prevent a tentative
smile from tugging at her lips. He got up and took a step toward
her, his eyes never leaving hers. “It’s so good to see
you.”

She
quickly
looked away, staring at her feet
in his lush carpet in utter confusion. On the floor under his bed,
she spied a copy of
Chess
Novel
by Stefan Zweig. Next to it was the
jewel case of Enya’s album
Watermark
. Only then did she
notice that her favorite music was playing. It was like walking
into her own room – as if Michael could read her mind and wanted to
make her feel at home.

All of
sudden, she remembered watching a TV show about near-death
experiences with Gran once. It featured interviews with
people
who’d had a brush with death but
came back to life afterward, and from that point onward they were
able to feel and see things that normal people couldn’t. Could
something like that be going on with Michael?

“It’s good to
be here,” she replied, a half-question in her voice.
Was it?

Michael put
his hand on her shoulder. When she looked back up at him, she saw
something in his eyes that she couldn’t
quite place – a kind of melancholy was hiding in his gaze;
some sort of wistfulness she had never seen there
before.

“This must be
difficult for you,” he spoke quietly, gesturing around him.
“You don’t have good memories of this room.” His lips formed
a bitter smile. “Or of me.”

A stab went through her
heart.
Why did he think it was necessary
to drag up how things had been between them? If he regretted the
way he’d treated her, he could just apologize to her.

“Why
did you invite me?” she blurted out, gazing at
him quizzically.

A
gentl
e look brightened Michael’s eyes, a
smile spreading across his face. Not a teasing smile, nor a mocking
smirk – it was the most genuine smile she had ever seen on his
face. He looked delighted, enraptured like a child seeing snow for
the first time. “Because I wanted to see you,” he said, taking a
step closer and taking her hand. “I was asleep. You woke me up
again.”

Julia closed
her eyes despondently. Of course he was grateful to her for
rescuing him from eternal sleep. That was all it was: gratitude. He
was probably too proud to offer a real apology.
Maybe she was too eager to believe he might have
changed.

“I have to
go.”
She carefully pulled her hand from
his grasp.

“Already?
You
just got here.”

She shrugged and didn’t reply.

Michael inhaled audibly. “Just stay for a
little while longer,” he said hoarsely.

Seriously,
what was the matter with him? He sounded so different from his
usual self. Full of a longing she hadn’t heard in his voice before,
even though she’d wanted to hear it with all her heart.

“I’m going,”
she doggedly maintained in spite of his
plea.
“Thanks.”

He
gazed at her mutely for a moment. “For what?” he
asked, sounding puzzled.

Julia
blushed
. “For your thank-you.”
She bit her lip.

He shook his head.
“You’re thanking me because I thanked you?” he
established, an obviously teasing undertone in his voice
now.

“Uhm, yes.” She chuckled
despite herself, shrugging again.
He bit
back a laugh, a playful light in his eyes. Julia’s felt her knees
buckling, her determination melting away like a Popsicle in the
Sahara. She
had
to get away from him right this instant. Gaby
would murder her if she knew about this. She backed away toward the
door, inwardly repeating ‘shit list, shit list’ like a
mantra.

“Don’t you
want some tea?” Michael pointed at the teapot and two cups on the
side table by his bed.