I Become Shadow (19 page)

I had apparently posed a pretty complicated question because he furrowed his brow and studied both of the games while having a quick conversation with himself. He then looked up at me and then down at the controller in my hand, which I was pretty sure I held both upside down and backward. He gave me a pitying smile before dropping both of the games and gently taking the controller out of my hands.

“How about this?” He held up a new game. “No controllers. It’s all motion sensors.”

“I’ve never played one of those.”

“It’s easy, all you have to do is stand up.” He said. He
pointed out the motion camera sitting on top of the TV and said, “This will do the rest. Just, you know, be normal.”

Ha! Normal
. Would he still have wanted to hang out with me had he known that my idea of “normal” was what had happened back in that alley?

He navigated through the video menu with hand gestures and before I knew it we were playing ping-pong. I felt silly swinging my hand through the air at a ball on TV, but before I knew it I was actually having fun and laughing. I lost spectacularly, but wanted to play again and again.

And so it went for the next few hours. I, who had previously hated video games with a deep passion, not only played, but actually liked it. He beat me most of the time, but I demolished him in all of the fighting games. We laughed, drank Mountain Dew, I clobbered him virtually. It was the closest to fun I’d had since I’d sparred with Junie.

When Gareth got tired, I told him I was going to stay just in case, even though he was safe to sleep now. He grinned and said, “Awesome.”

I prayed he wasn’t reading it the wrong way.

I curled up in the other bed as Gareth flipped off the light. The sun was coming up. The movie
Gladiator
was on TV, but the volume was practically on mute. He lay down in his bed on his back. His breathing was deep and tired. I wanted go over there and curl up next to him. Again, the drug and addict. I had a pretty good feeling he’d be totally okay with it too, but for entirely different reasons.

“You still awake?” he asked quietly.

“Yeah.”

He rolled over on his side and faced me.

“You feeling okay?” I asked with a smile.

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“Good.”

“Are we still going to be friends tomorrow? Or will you go back to being a ghost?”

The question took me off guard so I didn’t really have a good answer. “What do you think?”

“What do I want or what do I think?” he asked.

“Both.”

He looked away, avoiding eye contact as he said, “I
want
to be friends, but I
think
you’ll be a ghost.”

And with that he rolled over and turned his back to me. “Good night, Julia,” he said.

“Good night, Gareth. And my friends call me Ren.” The moment I said it, I knew I’d messed up—for more reasons than he could ever know. He’d given me an out, a way to end this quickly, and I’d passed on it. He slowly rolled over to look at me. I smiled at him, and he smiled back. I felt warm inside; his happiness meant my happiness. I didn’t care if I’d violated the rules. He could never know what Ren meant, other than it was a nickname only my closest friends knew—and now he was one of them. In a way, that was true.

“Now shut up and go to sleep,” I added.

I rolled over, my back to him. I could feel his bliss. It seemed to radiate from him and rolled over me in waves. I waited for him to fall asleep before rolling back over to keep an eye on him.

I DIDN’T SLEEP MORE
than an hour, so when Gareth’s alarm went off I made a good show of waking up. You know, the big yawn, the arm stretch.

“You stayed,” he said to me as he swung his legs over the side of the bed.

“Good morning to you too,” I said with another fake yawn.

“No, I just figured you would have left.”

While stretching I asked him, “How do you feel?”

“Okay. Last night’s kinda fuzzy though.”

“That’s a concussion for ya.” I stood up.

He giggled.

“What?” I asked. Self-consciously checking to make sure I hadn’t taken off my clothes or something. No nippage either, phew.

“Nothing,” he added, but was still smiling.

“What?” I said again.

“Nothing, really,” he replied again.

I hate it when people do this. HATE IT. Maybe because nobody ever did it during training. It reminds me of the life I had when I was fourteen.
There was something; or you wouldn’t have giggled
.

I asked once more, “Seriously, what?”

He gave me a look of like “fine” and said, “I was thinking that when my roommate finds out you slept in his bed he’ll never wash his sheets again. Happy?”

I winced, the blood rushing to my face. “Ew.”

“You asked.”

Again, this whole suddenly good-looking thing had reared its ugly head. It was a factor I’d really have to start
being more aware of. I had to break the mood, so I clapped my hands and said, “Well, I’m gonna go, you know, shower and stuff.”

I slipped off the bed and grabbed my shoes and socks off of the ground. When I reached the door he called out, “Hey.”

He was looking at me in a way I wished he wouldn’t. I could tell his mind was thinking, hoping, this could someday go somewhere. It wouldn’t. It couldn’t. He gave a sad little half-smile and quietly said, “Thanks again for everything. And for staying.”

“Sure thing.”

IN CASE THERE WAS
a police APB out for a small, black-haired ninja with freckles wanted for snapping bones and slicing people open, I put on some baggy clothes. I even added a hat and some sunnies too. With the ensemble I pretty much looked like a fifteen-year-old boy. This new “look” would not only protect me from the swarms of police I was sure were combing the campus, but could also put an end to this now-attractive nonsense.

Dressed and ready, I took my seat on my bed waiting for Gareth to be ready. As was his usual routine, Gareth got dressed, ate a Pop-Tart, and hiked his backpack on before leaving his room. Now, usually he heads right, and once he starts down the stairs I follow. But this time he turned left.

Knock, knock
went the door and so too my heart. What the hell was this?

“Yeah?” I said a little more harshly than I meant as I opened the door.

His eyes widened a bit before he got all flustered. “Oh, uh, sorry. I just, you know, we’re in the same classes and I figured we could, you know, walk together or something,” he stammered. He dropped his head. “Stupid, stupid idea. Sorry.” He turned to walk down the hallway.

I wanted to yell at him to keep going. Yeah, go all
White Fang
on him.
Go! Get! Can’t you see I don’t want you? You’re not welcome here
. And then I’d throw a rock at him for good measure. But I was fresh out of rocks, and the moment I opened the door and saw him I didn’t want to be anywhere but next to him. So when he started to walk away, I started to get that empty feeling again even though I knew I should let him go.

Out of pure selfishness, I called out, “Wait up.”

I grabbed my bag and bolted out of the door after him. He looked like a fat kid who’d won an eight-foot donut. He had done it. He’d won. We had become friendly, if not friends. Oh if Mr. S. could see me now, side-by-side and talking to my FIP.

“Nice look you got going there,” he commented. “That so the fuzz can’t recognize you?”

I nodded.

“I was gonna suggest something like that to you but forgot. The hat helps. You sorta look like a dude, though. Just FYI.”

“Kind of what I was going for,” I said flatly

When we reached our dorm exit he put his arm in front of me, stopping me from leaving.

“Wait here. I’ll go check it out.”

As sneakily as he could, and I use the term loosely since
he looked like cartoon character, he crept outside and looked around. “All clear. Let’s go.”

It was cute. Even with the irony. In fact, the irony made it cuter.

We made our way down the all-too-familiar paths toward the engineering area, only this time together. Yes, I liked having the company. I was all too happy to let Gareth jabber on about how awesome last night was and how he’d like me to teach him how to (and I quote), “deliver ass-kickery.” All I had to do was occasionally nod to keep him thinking I was listening.

“…  I mean, can you believe this, Julia, I mean, Ren? It’s like a real-life comic book or something. A hot, quiet girl who lives next door. Kind of nerdy. Big loner. You know, the girl you dream about hanging out with but since it’s been so long since you became neighbors it would be weird to introduce yourself now, so you fantasize about some exotic moment that finally brings you together. And then BAM! Suddenly it happens.
This
doesn’t happen in the real world.” He finished by gesturing toward me.

He was rambling on so excitedly I was having Lloyd flashbacks.

The momentary pause cued me that it was time for my line. “Uh-huh.”

“I know, right …” And so he continued. Past the clock tower. Across drill field. Around the library.

There was police tape blocking the alley shortcut where the “incident” had taken place. So we went around it. A small part of me got scared a cop would stop us for
questioning and recognize me from a security camera or something, but the few who were there drank their coffee and ignored us.

Either my disguise had worked, or, as was more likely, they had no idea who had done it.

Safely past the crime scene I toyed with the idea of what I would have done had the police seen me and shouted, “There she is!” I could easily have taken them all out, but then what? Could I return to the FATE Center? What would happen if the police caught me? Well, I knew that one. Actually, I think I knew the answer to both. The Hunters would come for me. I would eventually be found and killed, maybe even by Luka himself. And if the police caught me alive, well, I’m sure my first meal would be my last, laced with FATE-supplied poison.

There was another pause in the jabber coming from Gareth. I had totally zoned out and had absolutely no idea what he had said.

“So do you?” he repeated.

“Do I what?” I asked.

“Do you want to see that movie I was talking about tonight?” he asked.

“Oh, uh … well. I kind of have a …”

“You have a boyfriend,” he interrupted quietly.

I was actually going to say “project to finish” and was about to correct him on the boyfriend comment but stopped.
Do I? Don’t I?
This was another opportunity to fix the mess I’d created. Besides, what exactly was Junie to me if not that? There was the balcony, the emails every night. On the other hand, if odds were a million-to-one
you’d never see the other person again, could you really consider him to be your boyfriend? I think I
wanted
Junie to be my boyfriend, but logically speaking how could he be? But he definitely was more than a friend, so I finally nodded. “Yeah, I do have a boyfriend.”

While the look on Gareth’s face made me want to take it back, I didn’t. It was true, at least as far as I figured it, and it would be better if Gareth didn’t fantasize about something that would never happen. We were friends. That was it. And if I could somehow tone it down, not even very close friends. Acquaintances perhaps.

“Well, that sucks,” he said before continuing, “Lemme guess. Tall. Good-looking. Athletic?”

That was Junie. “Pretty much spot-on.”

“Shocker.”

“What?” I asked defensively.

“Well, I mean, it’s almost cliché, isn’t it?”

And maybe it was. But I think if given the circumstances we’d met under, you could look past that.

As if grasping, Gareth asked, “Is he smart?”

I kind of cringed and lightly said, “He thinks he is?”

Gareth nodded at the small victory, but it didn’t seem to help much. We walked the final few blocks to class in silence. I expected Grumpy Pants to take his seat at the front of the class as always, so I was surprised to see him sit next to me.

“What are you doing?” I asked. “You don’t sit back here.”

“I only sat up front because my folks told me to. Said it would be good for the professor to get to know me, recognize me.” He took a breath before adding, “Didn’t work.
I ran into him a few weeks ago by the quad and he called me Walker. It’s not even close.”

I gave a snort, and he laughed too. The classroom quickly began to fill up around us as we talked crap about the Prof. Gareth was taking the news of Junie like a challenge, and it had spurred him to lighten up and try to be cooler.

Lloyd took his customary seat on my other side and was a little annoyed at the level of attention I was paying to Gareth instead of him. Look at me: queen of the nerds! Not to be cast aside so easily, Lloyd joined in on the spirited Prof-bashing until Prof showed up—reminding me just how much I hated this class

As was my usual routine, the moment he started to lecture I made a big production of pulling out a newspaper and reading it instead of hanging on his every word. We seemed to have an unspoken agreement. I would ignore him altogether and he would do his best to flunk me. I would win this battle no matter how hard he tried. It was kind of sad if you were on his side, but a lot of fun if you were on mine.