Made to Love (6 page)

Octavius dove into the surf
and disappeared under the surface.  Hesitantly, I removed my
shirt – leaving on my lacy bra.  My breasts weren’t great—way
too big for my petite figure.  But it had never been a problem
before, because there had never been a guy to look at
them.

What if he didn’t like my
body?  What if he laughed me out of the ocean?  Horror of
horrors.  “Maybe I’ll stay out here,” I called feebly, folding
my arms over my chest.

Octavius surfaced and
flicked something onto the sand.  It took me a minute to
realize it was his underwear, and I felt myself blush so hard I
could have spontaneously combusted.

“
If you don’t come in,
I’ll come out and get you!” he sang.

 
Even
worse.

“
Please, dear Lord, save
me,” I whispered to the sky, and then I unbuttoned my skinny jeans
and wiggled them down my hips.

I had to remove my Keds to
get them off, leaving me in nothing but black boy shorts with a red
star and a bra from the sale bin at Victoria’s Secret.  I
grimaced.

Turning my head to the sky,
I muttered a quick prayer.  “Just don’t let my eyeliner
run.  The bottle said waterproof and I’ve been a
really
good girl this year.”  I watched Octavius paddle through the
water – naked – and added quietly, “So far.”

Waddling toward the water
with my hands still strategically placed to cover my body, I stood
at the edge.  The water lapped at my toes.  It wasn’t as
cold as it looked.

Octavius bobbed up not too
far away.  He must have been kneeling on the sand to keep his
bits underwater and protect my modesty.  With his hair
plastered to his face and neck, he looked even sexier than usual—if
that was possible.

“
You
are
afraid,”
he said.

“
No I’m not,” I said, but
I didn’t do anything to prove it.

“
Come on, I want to show
you something.  But you have to swim to see it.” 
Octavius eyed me.  “You
can
swim, can’t
you?”

Doggy-paddle, maybe. 
“Of course.  Yeah. Who can’t?”

“
Then come on,” he said,
grinning.

Squeezing my eyes shut and
muttering one more terse prayer, I stepped into the water up to my
hips.  It was a
lot
colder like that.  “Holy
crap,” I hissed, going up to my chest.

And then Octavius was
standing right in front of me.  He moved faster than a
dolphin, like he was born into the water.  Sheer proximity
made the water feel a
lot
warmer.  “Hey,” he murmured
in a low voice.

“
Hey,” I shivered. 
My teeth were chattering.

“
Come on.  I’ll help
you swim.”

He caught my hand and
pulled me out into the water.  I struggled valiantly to keep
my head above the water and preserve my makeup, but I ended up
getting splashed.  The salt in my mouth was gross, but I
didn’t embarrass myself swimming – much – and he led me to a little
cove not far away.

It was absolutely private,
backed right up against a small cliff and ringed by rocks. 
The water within was shallow, only waist-height, and no waves made
it in.

Octavius hauled himself
onto a rock smoothly, sitting up, and I tried not to look at his
nakedness.

“
Isn’t this beautiful?” he
asked.

I stared fixedly at the
moon.  “Yeah.  Really, really beautiful.”

He began to sing.  If
anything, he was singing even more beautifully than he had in front
of his band—his voice was the ocean, and the beach, and the wind
through the rocks.

It took me a minute to
realize just what he was singing.  “
The only color in my
bleak existence is the red leeching from my arm.  My soul is
so charred it frays, burning in the flame of my
discontent
.”  He shot me a look over his shoulder. 
“
Why?  Why can’t I cry?
”

I found myself moving
closer to his rock, drawn inexorably toward Octavius.  It
didn’t even occur to me to wonder how he could know that poem when
it had never left my bookshelf at home.

The only thing I knew was
his song, his voice, and that I wanted to be with him very, very
badly.

He dropped off the rock and
took me by the shoulders, pushing me against the boulder. 
Octavius towered over me, and his tongue darted out to lick his
lips.  “I think I asked you if you believed in love at first
sight,” he said.

I couldn’t find the words
to respond.  All I could manage was a nod.

Octavius bent and brushed
his lips against mine.  A gentle touch, nothing more. 
And then I leaned forward, wrapping my arms around his neck, and I
kissed him back.

In that moment, my life was
perfect.  I wanted nothing more than the soft brush of
Octavius’s lips, and the feel of his fingers caressing the side of
my face.  I loved the crush of his body against mine.  I
loved his smell, his taste.

But it wouldn’t last
long.

Distantly, someone screamed
the scream of lost hopes.

Chapter
Thirteen

I awakened in a
bed.

With a start, I pushed into
a sitting position and looked around.  The room was unfamiliar
at first, but my memory gradually returned, and I recognized the
nooks and crannies of my new Coos Bay room.

Groaning, I sank into the
covers.  My mom must have set up my bed while I was at school
the day before.  But what about last night?  Had all the
adventures with Octavius been a dream?

I caught the scent of my
hair.  It smelled of sea salt.

What happened?  I
remember Octavius, and the beach, and... nothing.

I must have fainted. 
It was the only explanation.  Everything was so beautiful and
perfect that I had passed out, and Octavius was kind enough to
bring me home.  After all, I only felt a little sore from
fighting the surf and a headache, probably from the
fainting.

Carefully, I dressed in the
bathroom, and I headed down to breakfast.  I had no idea what
I would find, but my growling stomach drove me onward.  Not
that I'd need much – a piece of toast was probably enough to keep
me the rest of the day – but I'd have to face the music eventually,
and better now than at a time I could be with Octavius.

My mom was the only one at
the dining room table.

“
Hi, sweetie,” she said
through a mouthful of egg.  “Dad's going to be working for the
next few days, so he won't be around much.”

That happened quite a lot,
but even so, I was suspicious.  Maybe it was just me, but the
timing seemed...off.  Either way, I needed food, so I slipped
into my seat and started to fill my plate with the offerings from
the middle of the table.

Mom squinted at me. 
“You're not looking so good.”

“
I didn't sleep much last
night,” I grunted.

She reached her hand across
to touch my forehead, and she clucked disapprovingly.  “You're
burning up.”

“
I'm
fine
.”

But she was already up
getting her thermometer.  I knew I was fighting a lost cause –
if Mom decided I was sick, I was sick – but it made me feel two
years old.  Ugh.  Couldn't I choose if I wanted to go to
school?

Sure enough, my mom stuck
the thermometer in my ear, and the number on the display read over
100.   There was no way she would let me step foot out of
the house.

Despite my protestations,
she pushed me upstairs, into my room, and into the layers of cushy
sheets.  I wouldn't deny that I wanted a little more shut-eye,
but I had more important concerns.

“
Mom, I just started
school.  I can't just--”

“
Yes, you can,” she
said.  “It's only for a day or two.”

“
But
Mom
--”

She hurried out of the room
and closed the door.  I heard the lock click.

Lock?

I jumped out of bed and ran
to the door.  A lock had indeed been placed on my door, but on
the wrong side.  I couldn't choose when to bar entry to my
room, but whoever had the key could prevent my exit.

I was a prisoner in my own
bedroom.

Chapter
Fourteen

I shook the handle, but it
wouldn’t budge.

“
Mom?” I asked, but her
footsteps receded on the other side.  “Mom!  You can’t do
this to me!”  I threw all my weight into trying to open the
door, but the fever got the better of me.  My head spun, and I
had to sit down on the bed.

My parents had always been
overprotective, but this… this was new.

Last night’s exchange swam
to the forefront of my memories once more—almost kissing Octavius
in the apple orchard, and then a bright light, and my dad yelling
at us. 
I’ve told you before your kind isn’t welcome
here
.

Was I locked up because I
was sick and they didn’t want me to get out, or because they didn’t
want someone to get in?

“
This is ridiculous,” I
muttered, pulling open my bedside drawer and removing the jewelry
box.  I didn’t wear much jewelry, so I mostly kept junk in my
jewelry box—including bobby pins.  I’d never picked a lock
before, but I’d seen it on TV enough to know the theory.

One pin goes on top of the
other to move the tumblers, the other is for leverage.  It
never took longer than a couple seconds on TV.  Easy,
right?

A half hour later, I flung
the bobby pins back in the drawer and sat on my bed.  “Okay,
not so easy,” I muttered.  Especially not when I still felt so
sick.

Someone rapped a knuckle on
the door.

“
Breakfast, Calliope,” Mom
said from the other side.  Keys jingled, and I hurried to get
under the covers.  The door unlocked and she came in bearing a
tray of food and an apologetic smile.  “How are you
feeling?”

“
Better,” I said. 
“Why don’t I go to school now?  I’ll only miss my first
class.”

“
Oh, hush.  You know
that’s not a good idea.”  She sat on the side of the bed,
placing the tray on my lap.  The food looked entirely
unappetizing.

“
Why?”

She gave me a stern
look.  “You know, most kids are happy to stay home from
school.”

“
I’m not a kid
anymore.  I
want
to go to school.  I want to
learn.”

“
Cal,” she sighed, setting
the ring of keys on the bed beside her.  I tried not to eye
them too obviously. Most of the keys I recognized—they went to my
parents’ variety of cars and the front door.  But one was
unlike the others: large, silver, antique.  It kind of looked
like it might match the lock on my door.  “We’re just trying
to protect you?”

I swallowed the bile that
rose in my throat.  “Yeah.  Okay.  But can I go to
school tomorrow?”

She leaned over and hugged
me, and I slipped my hand around to tug the silver key off the
ring.  Too big for the loop to hold it, the ring was on a
separate clip.  “Maybe,” Mom said, and then she ruffled my
hair.  “We’ll see tomorrow.  I’m going to go to your
father’s office at the university for awhile—try to relax and enjoy
your breakfast.”

Mom left, shutting the door
and locking it behind her.  I nearly drowned in my
disappointment.  I had grabbed the wrong key.

I took a second look at the
one I had snatched, turning it over in my hands.  It was
heavier than it looked, and ornate.  Definitely not a normal
house key.  Maybe it went to the basement door—not that it did
me any good, since I couldn’t get down to the basement
anyway.

Sullenly, I forced myself
to eat some of the horrible food.  “If Octavius was here, he
could get me out,” I muttered around a mouthful of fried
egg.

When I finally put aside my
food, I put in a few more half-hearted attempts at picking the
lock.  The house was empty now, so I could make all the noise
I wanted, but banging and rattling at the lock didn’t improve
anything.

Standing in the middle of
the room, I shivered and rubbed my arms.  Stupid drafty old
house.

Wait… drafty?

My door and windows were
shut, but air was getting in somewhere.  Holding my hand out
to feel the faint breeze, I followed it up to the bottom of the
tower.  There was a crack in the stone wall from which the air
was blowing.  It was a little too warm to be coming from
outside.

I leaned close to the wall,
inspecting the stones.  There was a hole in the corner of one
of them, and I wiggled my finger into it to feel around.

Something clicked, and the
wall swung open, revealing a steep staircase that ran down the back
of the house.

I stepped back,
surprised.  A secret passage?  How cool!

Fighting my urge to
immediately explore, I returned to my bedroom and dug up an old
flashlight, dressing quickly in a ruffled black skirt and striped
stockings, pulling on a tank top with a skull decal over my
head.  I wasn’t sure where the passage led—outside,
maybe.  If so, I wanted to be long gone before my parents got
back.  I bet I could stay with Octavius.