Illusions (18 page)

LAUREL WAITED OUTSIDE CHELSEA'S CLASSROOM AND
grabbed her arm as she walked out. “Are you and Ryan eating lunch with us today?” Laurel asked.

“I think so,” Chelsea said. “Why?”

“You just sneak off together sometimes,” Laurel said—though they seemed to be sneaking off a good deal less than usual these days. Chelsea steadfastly refused to confront Ryan about Harvard, and keeping her mouth shut about it seemed to be taking its toll. “I wanted to check.” The truth was, she didn't want to face David alone. Not yet. She was still mad that he'd “bumped” into Tamani that morning. She didn't think she had the patience to head off both guys' bad behavior today.

Laurel heard the commotion before she saw it. She and Chelsea rounded the corner just in time to see David slam his fist into Tamani's face. In the time it took her to blink, Tamani had David by the shirt. David took one lightning-quick blow to the stomach and doubled over, gasping for breath. Tamani held on and raised his free hand to strike again.

“Tamani!” She ran forward, shoving people out of her way to get to them.

Tamani held on to David's shirt a moment longer, but when Laurel emerged from the crowd, he shoved David back, releasing his T-shirt and leaving a wrinkled circle where his hand had clenched it.

“What the
hell
do you think you're doing?” Laurel yelled, looking back and forth between them.

“He started it!” David shouted, looking like he was about to attack Tamani again.

“He
hit
me,” Tamani said calmly, addressing his complaint to Laurel with his hands resting easily on his hips. “What was I supposed to do? Let him?”

“You wanted me to hit you and you know it,” David said, lunging forward. Ryan grabbed David by the shoulder and pulled him back. David shoved Ryan's arm away, but he didn't try to go for Tamani again.

“Oh, please,” Tamani argued, looking at David. “You've been wanting to take a shot at me since day one, admit it.”

“With pleasure,” David growled.

“That's enough!” Laurel yelled. “I can't believe . . . what the . . . forget it!” she said, raising her hands sharply to cut off all protests. “You want me to choose? Fine, I'll choose. I choose to walk away from you both! I don't want either of you if you're going to act like this. I'm through.” She spun on her heel and started shoving her way toward the front doors.

“Laurel!” The desperation in David's voice made Laurel stop and turn.

“No,” she said levelly. “I'm not going to do this again. We're done.” She didn't look back as she broke into a run. She heard footsteps behind her, but she couldn't stop—wouldn't stop.

“Mr. Lawson! What is the meaning of this!” She'd recognize his voice anywhere; it was Mr. Roster, the vice principal. “Mr. Collins! Tam Collins, come back here this instant!”

Laurel kept going and no one called after her. She shot through the front doors, grateful she'd driven that morning instead of riding with David—or Tamani. She jammed the keys in the ignition and for the first time she could remember, peeled out of her parking spot. The asphalt lot was not yet thick with milling students and Laurel didn't touch her brakes until she pulled up to the first stop sign.

Her hands naturally steered her to the 101 and it wasn't until she was halfway there that she realized she was heading to her old house. She found it rather ironic that since moving away from Orick, she'd mostly gone there to see Tamani. Now she was running away from him.

And David.

She didn't want to think about that.

There was some light rain on the way down, but Laurel didn't bother to close her windows. Her windshield was spotted and her hair a little damp, but she just pushed it away from her face. It began raining in earnest as she pulled into the unpaved driveway, and the clatter of raindrops tumbling through the canopy grew almost deafening. Laurel rolled up her windows, pushed open her door, and decided to take shelter in the cabin instead of the forest.

Besides, she was in no mood for lectures from Shar. He
might
follow her into the house, but in the forest he would be unavoidable.

Absently, Laurel fiddled with the knotted sash that kept her blossom bound. Her wilting petals didn't spring up so much as sag out, shifting gradually into place as she walked toward the cabin door with her shirt hiked to the bottom of her ribs. She jiggled her key in the deadbolt—sticky from disuse—and finally managed to make it turn. She had just laid a hand on the doorknob when she heard another vehicle crunch down the long driveway. She glanced around for something she could use as a weapon, then realized if it was anyone hostile, the sentries would handle them.

But when Tamani's convertible appeared around the bend, a whole new kind of fear set in.

His top was down and he was soaking wet. “Laurel!” he called, springing out of the seat almost before his car stopped rolling.

“No!” Laurel called over the rain, which drummed heavily on the tin roof of the cabin's small porch. She pressed her back against the door, her hand still tight around the doorknob. “I came here to get
away
from you!”

Tamani paused at the small wooden gate, his hand resting on the fence post. Then he strode forward, his eyes filled with purpose.

“I don't want you here,” Laurel said as he drew closer.

“I'm already here,” he said softly. He was just inches away from her, but he didn't touch her. Didn't even try. “The question now is whether you want me to
leave
.”

“I do,” Laurel said, her voice barely loud enough to be heard over the rain.

“Why?”

“You . . . you make everything confusing,” she said, her emotions overflowing into stinging tears that she swiped at with angry hands.

“I could say the same about you,” Tamani said, his eyes boring into hers.

“So why are you here?”

He lifted his hands and made as if to lay them on her arms, but just before they touched he stopped and let them fall. Then, simply, as though it were all the explanation she could ever need, he said, “Because I love you.”

“You have a funny way of showing it.”

A heavy sigh escaped Tamani's lips. “Look, not my finest moment, obviously. I was mad. I'm sorry.”

“What about Yuki?”

“Yuki? I—” Tamani frowned, his brow furrowed in thought. Then his eyes widened as realization dawned. “Oh, Laurel, you don't think—”

“She really likes you.”

“And I would trade every minute I have ever spent with her for one second with you. Every instant I'm with Yuki is an act, a game. I have to find out what she is, what she knows, to keep
you
safe!”

Laurel swallowed hard. His words
sounded
like truth. For a moment she pondered whether this truly
was
all the explanation she ever needed. But she mustered her resolve; he had only answered half of the question she really needed to know. And as he could not read her mind, if she wanted an answer she was going to have to ask.

“Would it hurt you more if I was with David because I loved him, or if I was with David because I wanted to make you jealous?”

“Hurt—?” Tamani started immediately, before the analogy could sink in. Then he stopped and studied her, as they stood beneath the cabin's porch, the rainfall settling into a steady liquid hiss against rooftop and treetop alike. And though it was the only sound for miles, she couldn't hear it over the sound of her own ragged breath.

Quietly, almost too quietly to hear, Tamani spoke. “I would never do something just to hurt you.”

“No?” Laurel asked, much louder than Tamani, her voice rising louder with every word as she finally asked the question that felt like it had torn deeper into her every day. “What about at the dance? You were dancing with Yuki and I looked at you. And you turned away and held her closer. Why did you do that? If you didn't want to hurt me, then why?”

He looked away, as though slapped, but he didn't look guilty. He looked
pained
. “I closed my eyes,” he said, his voice so low and strangled she could hardly hear him.

“What?” she asked, not understanding.

Tamani held up a hand and Laurel realized he hadn't finished—he was having trouble speaking at all. “I closed my eyes,” he repeated after a few shallow breaths, “and imagined she was you.” He looked at her, his face open, his eyes honest, his voice a song of anguish.

Without thinking, Laurel pulled him to her and her mouth met his with a passion, a hunger, she felt powerless to fight. He braced himself against the door frame with both hands, as though he were afraid to touch her. She tasted the sweetness of his mouth, felt the strength of his body against hers. She still had one hand on the doorknob, so she turned it. Their combined weight sent the door flying open and, stumbling backward, her fist tangled in his hair, Laurel pulled Tamani in after her.

THEY REALLY HAD STAYED TOO LONG—IT WOULD BE
nearly dark when they got back—but they'd kept finding reasons to stay. To linger in the empty cabin, holding hands, or laughing at memories of Laurel's childhood, or stealing just one more kiss—one kiss that turned into two, then ten, then twenty. She knew that once they left the cabin, everything would get complicated again. But for those few hours, in the empty house with no electricity, phone, internet, or television, the world was theirs alone.

But they couldn't keep night from falling. She had considered just staying—she was safe at the cabin, maybe even safer than at home. But though it was Tamani's job to keep
her
safe, it was her job to keep her family safe. And she couldn't do that from fifty miles away. Besides, her parents were probably worried. By the time she had collected herself enough to remember that Tamani had a cell phone, they were in separate cars, headed back to Crescent City.

The drive went much too quickly and soon she was within a few blocks of her house. She looked in her rearview mirror and waved at Tamani as he peeled off and headed to his apartment, watching his taillights until they disappeared. It was only when someone honked behind her that she realized she'd been sitting at a green light.

Stars were peeking out behind the clouds by the time Laurel pulled into her driveway. She was going to be in so much trouble. Her mom's car was in the garage, though it didn't look like her dad was home yet. Pocketing her keys, Laurel attempted to sneak into the house and was immediately foiled by her mother sitting in the front room sipping a cup of tea and reading a gardening magazine.

Laurel shut the door behind her. “Um, hi,” Laurel finally said.

Her mom studied her for a minute. “I got an interesting call from the school's attendance office today.”

Laurel cringed on the inside. She busied herself with loosening her petals from their silken bonds.

“You were absent from all your afternoon classes.”

The speech she'd planned all the way home evaporated. So she remained silent. A single petal came free with her scarf, and Laurel wondered if she would lose them all tonight, or if this one had been jarred loose by the day's activities.

“And then you walk in after seven o'clock on a school night—with no word whatsoever—and your eyes are sparkling like I haven't seen them in weeks,” she finished, her voice soft.

“I'm sorry I worried you,” Laurel said, trying to sound sincere while suppressing a smile. Her apology
was
sincere, but a guilty smile would undermine that.

“I wasn't worried for long,” her mom said, swinging her legs over the side of the couch. “I'm a quick learner. I went out to the backyard and talked to your sentry friend, Aaron.”

Laurel's eyes widened. “You talked to Aaron?”

“He told me Tamani checked in at about noon and told them you were safe with him. So I stopped worrying.”

“That was enough to make you stop worrying?”

“Well, I stopped worrying about your
safety
, anyway. I saw the look in that boy's eyes the other night. There's no way he would let anything happen to you.”

That grin she just couldn't stop curled back onto her face.

“Don't think that gets you off the hook though; you're still in trouble. We'll talk punishment when your father gets home.” She sobered now. “Seriously, Laurel. What were you thinking? Does David know where you are?”

Laurel's face fell and she shook her head.

“Is he at home worried sick?”

“Probably.” She felt awful.

“Did you want to call him?”

She shook her head in a stiff, jerky way.

“Oh.” Then a long pause. “Come in the kitchen,” she said finally, pulling gently on Laurel's arm. “I'll make you a cup of tea.”

As far as her mom was concerned, tea fixed everything. Have a cold? Have some tea. Broken bones? There's tea for that too. Somewhere in her mother's pantry, Laurel suspected, was a box of tea that said,
In case of Armageddon, steep three to five minutes
.

Laurel sat on a barstool and watched as her mom fixed her a cup of tea, then stirred in ice cubes until it was cool.

“I noticed you losing a petal there,” her mom said conversationally. “Would you mind if I preserved a few? They really smell fantastic. I bet I could make a killer potpourri.”

“Um, sure,” Laurel said, trying not to feel too weird about her mom making something out of her petals.

“You get rained on much today?”

“A bit.”

“Well,” Laurel's mom said after spooning some sugar into the tea, just the way Laurel liked it, “that's all the small talk I've got. Are you going to tell me what happened?”

Laurel put it off just a few more seconds as she sipped her tea. “David and Tamani got in a fight at lunch. A fistfight. Over me,” she finally said.

“David? Really?”

“I know, right? But they've been angry and mopey lately. And there have been little confrontations the last couple weeks. I guess they just blew up today.”

Her mom was smiling now. “I never had two boys fight over me.”

“You say that like it's fun. It's
not
fun!” Laurel protested. “It was awful. I broke up the fight, but it was just too much. So I left.”

“And . . . Tamani followed you?”

Laurel nodded.

“Where did you go?”

“To the cabin in Orick.”

“And Tamani joined you?”

“I didn't ask him to,” Laurel said defensively.

“But he did.”

Laurel nodded.

“And you let him.”

Another nod.

“And then . . .” Her mom let the question hang in the air.

“And then we went to the cabin. And hung out,” she tacked on, feeling like a moron.

“Hung out,” her mom said wryly. “Is that what the cool kids are calling it these days?”

Laurel rested her face against her palms. “It wasn't . . . like that,” she muttered through her fingers.

“Oh, really?”

“Okay, fine. It was kind of like that,” Laurel said.

“Laurel.” Her mom walked around the counter and put her arms around Laurel, leaning her cheek against the top of her head. “It's all right. You don't have to defend yourself to me. I'd be lying if I told you I was surprised.”

“Am I really so predictable?”

“Only to a mother,” her mom said, kissing the top of her head. “I have an idea. Why don't you call Chelsea and tell her everything's okay, and she can pass the word on to David. He's called here twice already.”

“Good idea.” Laurel smiled up at her mom, if a little weakly. In truth Chelsea wasn't a lot easier to face than David, but after today she'd take what she could get.

* * *

“Homigosh,” Chelsea said breathlessly before Laurel even said hello.
Thank you, caller ID.
“You broke up with David!”

Laurel winced. “Yeah, I guess I kind of did,” she admitted.

“In front of the whole school!”

“I didn't mean for it to happen in front of the whole school.”

“So you meant for it to happen?”

Laurel sighed, glad she'd decided to call Chelsea from the privacy of her room instead of downstairs in front of her mom. “No, I didn't mean for it to happen.”

“So are you taking it back?”

“No,” Laurel said, strangely sure of her answer, “I'm not taking it back.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes. At least . . . for now.”

“So what does that mean? Are you with Tamani now?”

After this afternoon?
“I—I don't know,” she admitted.

“But maybe?”

“Maybe.”

“Whoa.”

“I know.” Laurel toyed with a sugar-glass vial on her desk. She had no idea what to say. “I, um, I called to tell you I'm okay since I disappeared kinda fast today. And in case you were worried . . .” Her voice trailed off as she heard a soft tap and spun around to catch a hint of movement outside her bedroom window. Tamani raised his head and smiled. Laurel smiled back and almost let go of the phone. “Hey, Chelsea, I gotta go,” she said breathlessly. “Dinner.”

“At eight o'clock?”

“Yeah,” Laurel said, remembering the whole reason for calling in the first place. “Could you . . . would you mind calling him and telling him I'm safe?”

“Him? Like, David?”

“Yeah. Please?”

She heard Chelsea sigh and mutter something about shooting the messenger. “You want me to tell him anything else?”

“No. Just that I'm safe. I gotta go. Thanks, Chelsea, bye,” she said in a rush before hitting END and tossing the cordless onto her bed. She hurried over to the window seat and unlatched her window.

“May I come in?” Tamani asked, his smile gentle, eyes warm.

“Sure,” Laurel said, returning his smile. “But you'll have to be quiet; my mom's downstairs and my dad should be home any minute.”

“I'm good at quiet,” Tamani said, stepping silently over the windowsill in bare feet.

Laurel left the window open, enjoying the lingering scent of rain. She stared down at her carpet. Then Tamani reached over and curled his fingers around hers. He pulled her gently toward him and twined his arms around her waist. “I missed you,” he whispered in her ear.

She pulled her head back and looked up at him. “I didn't think I'd see you till tomorrow.”

He reached up and covered her hand with his, then lifted it to his lips and slowly kissed each fingertip. “Did you really think I could stay away?”

He let go of her hand and lifted her chin. He kissed her eyelids first, one then the other, and Laurel stood very still, her breath shallow, as he kissed each cheek, then her chin, then her nose. She wanted to grab him, to pull him in and reignite the sparks that had blazed between them this afternoon, but she forced herself to hold still as he lowered his lips to hers, the sweetness of his mouth enveloping hers. So slowly, so gently.

She lifted her hands to the sides of his face when he started to pull away. She couldn't bear for this sweet kiss to end. His arms tightened around her in response and Laurel pressed her body against him, wishing—for a moment—that she could be part of him.

She turned when a knock sounded on her door. “Yeah?” she asked, hoping she didn't sound as breathless as she felt. The knob turned and before Laurel could say anything, the door opened.

“Your dad's home,” her mom said. “Come on down and face the music.”

Laurel turned very slightly and looked out from the corner of her eye.

No Tamani.

She nodded and followed her mom out the door, hardly daring to look back.

* * *

“So what's the damage?” Tamani was sprawled on Laurel's bed, startling her as she closed her bedroom door.

“Where were you?” Laurel asked in a whisper.

“When in doubt, head under the bed,” Tamani said with a grin.

“But there wasn't time,” Laurel protested.

“Time enough for me.”

Laurel shook her head. “I thought we were busted.”

“Are
you
busted?” Tamani asked. Laurel wondered if he'd ever said
busted
before in his life.

“I'm grounded for a week,” she said, shrugging as she sat beside Tamani. It still felt strange, having him here. It was one thing to lose herself in a kiss, but having a mundane conversation with Tamani felt awkward. It wasn't like talking to David, who was a fixture in her life—comfortably familiar, like a favorite pair of slippers. Could Tamani replace that, now that he lived close by? Now that she saw him every day?

“Does that mean I should leave you alone this week, so you can feel the full weight of your punishment?” Tamani said, his face serious.

Laurel's eyes widened, but Tamani's mouth twitched into a grin and she whacked his arm.

He caught her hand and held it for a moment before tucking his fingers between hers and pulling her down against his chest. “Does that mean it's okay if I come keep you company?” he asked quietly, before turning to look at her with his pale, intense eyes.

Laurel hesitated. She'd been with David for almost two years, had loved him every day. And even though she'd broken up with him, just having Tamani here felt a little like cheating. She was tired of David's jealousy, of his mood swings, but did that mean she wasn't in love with him anymore? Besides, David wasn't the only one she'd told off today. She had little doubt that Tamani had picked that fight, but here she was, rewarding his efforts. His virtues shined too brightly for her to focus on his flaws. Did that mean she
was
in love with Tamani?

Was it possible to be in love with two people at the same time?

“You going to sleep?” Tamani whispered.

“Mmm?” Laurel replied, her eyes fluttering open.

Tamani bent his head a little closer to her ear. “Can I stay?” he whispered.

Laurel opened her eyes all the way now. “Here?”

He nodded.

“Like, all night?”

His arms pushed a little farther around her. “Please? Just to sleep.”

She tilted her head up, kissing him quickly to soften her answer. “No.”

“Why not?”

“It's just weird.” She shrugged. “Plus, my parents would hate it.”

“They don't have to know,” Tamani said with a grin.

“I know,” Laurel said seriously, putting a hand on Tamani's chest. “But
I
would know. I don't like lying to them. Things have been way better since I started telling them the truth. Waaaay better.”

“You didn't tell them I was up here before, or that I'm planning on being around this week.”

“No, but those are small things. This feels like a big thing.”