Falling From Grace (9 page)

I could hear his muffled laughter and I looked up as he removed his helmet, my mouth suddenly still…gaping…dry.

Dear God in Heaven, how could someone be so beautiful?
 
And what on earth was he doing here with me?
 
Rather, what was
I
doing here with
him
?
 
His hair, I realized now, was slightly longer than what was considered trendy here in Heath, and it was wavy.
 
A chunk of it hung over his right eye, like a black velvet curtain hiding a star performer on the magnificent stage that was his face.
 

His nose, often a body part that looks so foreign on the human face, looked as though it had been sculpted from the same travertine stone of his skin.
 
His cheekbones were high, sharp…almost dangerous.
 
But his mouth
—
that
was
dangerous.
 
Of that I was certain.
 
His lips were full, poised at the ready to kill me with a smile.
 
I knew it was coming any second now.
 
How many times had I died today with just one quick twitch from his lips?
 
This time, I was ready…a willing victim.

He looked at me.
 
I closed my eyes, prepared.
 
I took a deep breath, and then…

“So we meet again.”

I opened my eyes and blinked.

Was this the only thing he knew how to say?
 
A face so divine, a mouth so lethal, eyes so deep and mysterious, and when he speaks with that glorious voice that made my legs begin to tremble even harder
—
not from the bike ride, but from something else altogether
—
he has nothing new to say?

“Don’t you know anything else to say other than ‘
so we meet again
’?” I yelled.
 
Why was I yelling?
 
I was furious, that’s why!
 
“You have no idea who I am.
 
I certainly know a lot less about you, so tell me why would you follow me, tell me to ride with you on your-your-your
death
machine, and then choose
that
to say, with everything else that I’m sure you want to know?”

He folded his arms across his chest and smiled.
 
He was amused!

“Why are you smiling?
 
This isn’t funny.
 
I’m in the middle of God knows where-” I eyed him up and down “-with God knows who, and I stink of beans and
beef
!”

For whatever reason, my mouth was moving on its own, the words falling out like the bottom had been torn out of a rusty old coffee can filled with secrets.
 
“My best friend
—
well, he’s not my best friend anymore, and he probably never really was
—
hates me.
 
My father is starting a new family without me with a woman I cannot stand.
 
I just ditched my first day of school…for the first time…
ever
; and the only thing you can say to me is ‘
so we meet again
’, as if that is somehow the most important, most relevant phrase in the history of the spoken word?”
  

I was breathing hard; all of the angry feelings that I had dammed up within me were leaking, oozing out of every pore, slowly deflating the balloon I had felt growing inside of me, suffocating me.
 
I had never really done it before
—
yell at someone for no reason other than because I was angry
—
it felt good.
 
“I’m through being the damn punchline for everyone’s jokes, so you can wipe that stupid smirk off of your face.
 
You’re new here so you’re seventeen years late for the joke anyway.”

He took a step forward, the slight motion causing me to take one back for some nameless reason.
 
“I don’t recall you responding in a very pleasant manner when I said it the first time, and I received no response the second time, and now after saying it again this third time, you give me a response in the form of a little tantrum.
 
You should be glad that I’m amused, rather than turned off,” he answered me, calmly, matter-of-factly.
 
He reached for the seat of the motorcycle; lifting it, he removed a small bundle from within and handed it to me. “And, just in case I was rude by not introducing myself earlier, my name is Robert N’Uriel Bellegarde.”

Robert
.
 
Now I knew something that Erica did not.
 
I knew his name.
 
I felt the beginnings of a reluctant smile form on my lips, but I quickly squashed it.
 
“So you
do
know more than four words of English.
 
Good.
 
That’ll make it easier to yell at you later
—
I hate yelling at people who can’t understand what I’m saying,” I joked nervously, grabbing the item in his hand.
 
“What is this?”

He shrugged his shoulders.
 
“You complained about smelling like beef and beans.
 
That’s an extra shirt I carry with me in case I ever need a clean one, and it just so happens that today, I do.
 
Or, at least, you do.”

I looked at the bundle of cloth in my hands.
 
This was a shirt?
 
But it felt so…nice!
 
Soft, like an old t-shirt, but it wasn’t old, faded cotton with some cheesy screen print on it.
 
I was a stranger to anything different.
 
This shirt, if one could call it that, was a gunmetal gray, shimmery, and smelled…it smelled incredible.
 
I looked up at him, wondering why he would give me his shirt when he didn’t even know me.
 
What was I but a nobody to him?
 
I looked around nervously and laughed; where was I going to change?

“I’m not a fan of chili
—
the smell offends me—so I would appreciate it if you would change; we’re completely alone here, so you can change right where you are.
 
I’ll turn my back, if that will make you feel better.”
 
He paused and looked at me, his expression bemused, contemplative.
 
“And I
do
know you, Grace.
 
You’re not the nobody you think you are.”

I didn’t even notice that he had answered the questions in my head before I had had the chance to ask it out loud until later.

He turned around so that I could remove my now crusty, chili-drenched clothing with some semblance of modesty.
 
The shirt was probably impossibly stained now
—
there was no saving it—so I just balled it up and threw it into a nearby trashcan after using it to wipe up the chili that had leaked through onto my chest.
 
I quickly slipped on his shirt, gasping at how silky it felt against my skin.
 
It definitely was far more expensive than anything I owned.
 
It hung like a sack on my body, though; trailing down to my thighs, the collar hung low over my chest.
 
I looked down and sighed.
 
There really was nothing there to cover anyway, so why try and be modest?

“Okay, you can turn around now,” I told him, confident that I was looking as decent as humanly possible.

He put his hands into his pockets and slowly turned to face me.
 
The look on his face didn’t reveal to me anything as to how he felt about the way I looked in his shirt.
 
Of course I would look hideous in it; the color was wrong for me, if I paid any attention to that sort of thing to begin with, and there was no shape to it
—
or me for that matter.

“Thank you for the shirt,” I said, not quite sure exactly what to make of his vacant expression.
 
“And I’m sorry about your jacket and the…er…tantrum.”

Nothing.

“I do want to know where we are, though.
 
I want to know why you picked me up.
 
I want to know how you knew what I was going to ask before I asked it.
 
And…I want to know why me.
 
Why me of all people?”
 
I rambled.

His smile returned.
 
This looked promising.
 
“So many questions from someone who couldn’t even say hello.
 
Well let’s see if I can answer all of them to your liking.
 
We’re at the Bellegarde family retreat, I picked you up because you shouldn’t be walking alone, I read your mind, and because you’re different.
 
Very
different.”

Did he just say he
read
my mind?
 
“Wait a minute.
 
You
read
my mind
-
” saying it out loud didn’t make it any more believable “
-
you actually
read
my mind?”
 
Didn’t convince me that second time either.
 
“And what do you mean, I’m ‘
different
’?”

“
Very
different,” he corrected.

“I heard you the first time,” I snapped.
 
“What exactly do you mean by that?
 
And answer me about the mind reading thing!”
 
I was glaring at him, annoyed that he had me sounding like a parrot.
 
I didn’t like these up and down emotions that he was causing in me, either.
 
One minute I was ready to melt into a puddle at his feet.
 
The next, I wanted to rip his eyes out of their sockets.
 
This wasn’t me at all, and I didn’t like it.

He started walking towards a bench, motioning for me to follow, and then sat down.
 
“I can hear your thoughts just as clearly as if you spoke them aloud, Grace.
 
And,” he paused for effect, “you
are
very different.
 
You’re not like the other girls in school at all.
 
Actually, you’re not like any girl, period.”

Well that was no surprise.
 
“Everyone knows that I’m not like the other girls in school.
 
It’s called being ostracized, Robert.”
 
How weird that felt
—
saying his name so casually, like we had been friends for ages…it came out so naturally, I felt giddy and embarrassed all at once.
  
I turned my face away as I sat down, not wanting to see the reaction to my use of his name.
 
Of course I feared the likely rejection of my assumed familiarity, but more than that, I feared that I might see the opposite…and hated myself for even thinking such a possibility could exist.
 

I continued talking while staring at my shoes, “How can you hear my thoughts?
 
Can you hear what I’m thinking right now?”

I looked at him and focused, my eyebrows drawing together with deep concentration.
 
Is this coming in loud and clear to you, breaker-breaker?

He laughed.
 
It was a very rich sound—vibrant and multi-faceted, like an audible prism
—
I marveled at the way it seemed to fill my head with its resonant tone.
 
“I hear you loud and clear,” he replied to my silent question.

Gape mouthed, I stared at him.

What’s four plus four?

“Eight.”

Who wrote the Star Spangled Banner?

“Frances Scott Key.”

Why did the rooster cross the road?

“Because it was stuck in the chicken.”

How are you
doing
this?

“I was born with this ability.”

My mouth was gaping so widely, I felt like an open back door.
 
You were
born
with it?

He nodded.
 
And then I heard a voice inside my head.
 
It sounded tinny…strange…faint.
 
Slowly it grew louder.
 
Stronger, until it was, as Robert had described, as clear as it if were spoken aloud.

And now, Grace, you can hear
my
thoughts.

I fell off the bench.
 
A loud “umph” came out of my mouth as I landed on the hard ground in complete shock.
 
He laughed at me again, only this time I heard it twice, like an echo both outside and inside of my mind.

“You…you’re in m-my-my head!” I gasped.

So I am.

“Stop it!” I shouted.
 
I grabbed my ears with my hands, as though that would work to keep him out, as if he were merely throwing his voice, rather than his thoughts.
 
And then, just to make sure, I started la-la-la-ing.
 
It wasn’t my finest moment to be sure, but this wasn’t exactly the time to be wowing a judging panel.

Why is it easy for you to accept that I can read your thoughts, but not that you can also hear mine?

“Who said that I accepted you reading my thoughts?
 
For goodness sake, people aren’t supposed to read other people’s thoughts!
 
And I wasn’t born with this…this…
thing
!
 
Why should I accept hearing your thoughts?” I shouted, exasperated, annoyed…frightened.