Our Song (18 page)

That's when I realized what all that popcorn on the window seat had been about. Nanny had made the storms into a party for me and Carl to make
herself
less afraid.

“It became all about you,” Nanny said. “I had this silly idea that if a tree ever fell on the house while I was there, I'd somehow make sure that it hit me and missed you.”

“Wow, Nanny,” I said. “That's sweet, in a twisted kind of way.”

I sneaked a glance at Jacob and found him peeking at me, the corners of his mouth twitching. I knew
just
what he was thinking:
See, Nell? Being dark must be in your genes.

Nanny, meanwhile, emitted a dry little laugh.

“That's just how you think once you're a parent,” she said. “Even more so when you're a granny. I guess that's why I was worried about you tonight.”

Normally, this would have made me indignant and embarrassed. I was fifteen! I didn't need Nanny to rescue me or take care of me. I could take care of myself!

But she looked so sweet and vulnerable and, well,
old
there on the couch with her afghan and tea. I couldn't be annoyed with her. I was just grateful she wasn't hurt worse by her fall.

“By the way, Nell,” Nanny added, “Camden isn't a stupid place. It's magical.”

“And I took it away from you,” I said. My voice suddenly went thick, and tears sprang to my eyes. “Mrs. Teagle said you need two to three weeks to heal. By the time you can play again, we'll be home.”

Nanny gazed down at the big wad of gauze on her hand.

“I can't play,” she declared. “But I can still teach. Except I'll need help.”

Jacob perked up, seeming grateful for something to do.

“Everyone in the class will help you,” he promised. “Whatever you need. And if they try to bring in a sub, we'll boycott!”

“Oh, Jacob, bless your heart,” Nanny said, smiling at him again. “But I don't think any grand rebellion is going to be necessary. All I need is someone who can play what I say. A translator, I guess you'd call it. And that someone has to know
my
musical language; has to know it very well, indeed.”

I slumped down in my chair and gazed at the ceiling. I felt like a balloon being deflated, the air flowing out of me with a pathetic, whistling sound. Nanny could pretend all she wanted that she was just doing some innocent musing, but her manipulation was crystal clear.

“I suppose the
best
translator,” Nanny went on, “is someone who's been speaking that language her whole li—”

“Okay,” I blurted. “I get it, Nanny. I'll do it.”

“You'll . . .?” Jacob looked at me, his eyebrows so high I could see them above his glasses frames.

“I'll be Nanny's assistant,” I told him.

I turned to Nanny.

“So, you'll tell them what to do and I'll demonstrate how to do it?” I said.

“That's about it,” Nanny said, nodding firmly and looking pleased with herself. “It's what we'd planned on anyway, remember?”

“But what about blacksmithing?” Jacob said. He was sitting on the edge of his chair now, looking concerned.

I shrugged.

“I guess I'll have to give it up,” I sighed. “I'll find Coach at breakfast and let him know.”

“Just follow the platter with the extra bacon,” Nanny said with a smile, “and you'll find him.”

Great,
I thought.
So not only do I have to tell Coach I'm bailing on his class, I have to do it in front of a mound of torturously delicious breakfast meat.

I'd been in crisis mode—shaky, guilt-racked, and high-strung—ever since Nanny had stumbled through the door.

But now that she was safe and my fate was sealed, I suddenly felt depleted and not a little depressed. I'd been trying to escape my fiddling destiny, but it had caught up with me. It would
always
catch up with me.

The fact that assisting Nanny would mean spending my days
with Jacob should have cheered me. But I'd gotten fatalistic about him, too. Surely after being thwarted so many times, he'd been traumatized out of the idea of kissing me.

Annabelle would have said the universe was trying to tell us something.

Maybe it was finally time to listen.

Chapter
Eighteen

T
hat night in our dorm
room, I told Annabelle everything that had happened. And everything I was feeling.

“I've got emotional whiplash,” I complained. “I
want
to spend every minute with Jacob. But that makes me crazy, because it's becoming really clear that things just aren't going to happen between us. So really, I should just keep my distance, right? But now, of course, I can't! Which is making me
crazier
.”

“Wow,” Annabelle said as she climbed into her bed and snuggled into her pillow. “That sounds really complicated.”

“Right,” I said, flopping into my own bed. “And complicated is totally your area. So lay it on me, Annabelle. What should I do?”

“You should”—Annabelle's voice sounded soft and watery—“ask me in the morning? I was up too late last night.”

“Were you with Owen?” I asked, trying not to let any jealous-green notes into my voice.

“Mm-hmm,” she said.

“What'd you guys do?” I asked.

“Walked, talked, kissed,” Annabelle said, sounding happy. “It was fun. And you know, it was all because I took your advice! Remember, you told me not to overthink it too much? To just go with it?”

I flung an arm over my forehead and groaned.

“Is that what I said?”

“Uh-
huh
,” Annabelle said. “Owen and I also agreed to just enjoy this month together and deal with later, later.”

“That sounds reductive,” I sighed. I'd heard Annabelle use that term in the dining hall recently. “Nice and reductive.”

“Um, that's not really how you use that word,” Annabelle said. “I think you mean simple?”

“Don't take this the wrong way,” I said, “but you have a
lot
of vocabulary words I don't get.”

Annabelle laughed while I frowned at the dark ceiling, missing the glow-in-the-dark stars that were in my bedroom at home. Staring at them always helped me drift off to sleep when I was fretful.

“Hey,” Annabelle said, reaching over to poke me, “that was
good
advice you gave me. Maybe it's time for you to follow it.”

“You're the one who told me I should think about Jacob more!” I said, sitting up in my bed and pointing at her. I didn't care if she
couldn't see me in the dark. “That I should think about kissing him. Well, I did. Think about it, I mean. To the point that I'm now a hormone-addled ball of crazy.”

Annabelle turned on her side and tucked her hands beneath her cheek.

“I think you need to talk to him,” she declared.

“No way,” I gasped.

“Yeaaaah, you need to talk to him,” she insisted.

“Seriously, I can't. What if it doesn't go well? What if I've been delusional about him liking me that way? I have to face him
every day
.”

“Well, then you need to do something to take your mind off him,” Annabelle said with maddening logic. “And ooh, I have just the thing. But we'll do it in the morning. Set your alarm for six.”

“Six?!” I said. “Why?”

“You'll see,” Annabelle said. Then she flipped over, pointedly turning her back on me. In a few minutes, her breathing slowed and it was clear she had fallen asleep.

Remembering the gross burnt sage from our first day at Camden, I was a little apprehensive about Annabelle's secret plan. And I was sure waking up two hours earlier than I normally did wouldn't make the day any easier.

But what did I have to lose by going along with her? I'd already lost blacksmithing.

And Jacob? Him, I'd never really had.

•  •  •

The next morning Annabelle and I left the dorm at six fifteen. She somehow looked gorgeous in a pair of Indian pajama bottoms and a tank top, her curls plaited into two loose braids.

I, on the other hand, was wearing two different flip-flops and had a bad case of dandelion head.

But at least the heat had broken as promised. The air felt cool and clean. It pepped me up and even made me feel a little optimistic.

Annabelle carried a sack made of burlap or hemp or some other earthy-smelling fabric. From it, she extracted a bottle of water and a bag of nuts.

“Breakfast,” she said handing them to me before taking out her own bottle and bag. “Raw almonds and dried blueberries. Full of antioxidants.”

“Does that mean we're skipping real breakfast?” I asked. “I heard Ms. Betty's making sweet potato biscuits.”

“This is a cleanse,” Annabelle pronounced seriously. “Sweet potato biscuits are full of processed wheat and butter.”

Super-
delicious
processed wheat and butter,
I grumbled in my head. Then I peered suspiciously at my water bottle.

“There's no wheatgrass or anything like that in here, is there?” I asked.

Annabelle heaved a long-suffering sigh.

“It's not
that
kind of cleanse,” she growled.

“Sorry,” I murmured.

Annabelle tried to make her face return to its former serene, yoga-goddess expression.

But I guess she couldn't quite
cleanse
my wheatgrass crack from her mind, because a moment later she slapped her hand over her mouth and snorted.

That made me start giggling, and soon we were both stifling shrieks of laughter.

“Here, calm down and have a raw nut,” I gasped, thrusting her bag of squirrel food at her. “Yummy.”

“You're a nut,” Annabelle replied, grabbing an almond and pelting me with it.

Then we hurried away from campus. After a few minutes of hiking in the glow of the sunrise, I realized where we were going.

“This is the Saturn trail, the one that goes to the creek,” I said.

“Uh-huh,” Annabelle said. “We need running water.”

I skidded to a halt.

“Not
that
running water,” I said. “That creek is the exact wrong place for me to ‘cleanse' myself of Jacob. Every time I picture the two of us in that creek I get . . . well, I get
very
distracted.”

“Ooh!” Annabelle exclaimed happily. “That makes it an even more perfect place for this! C'mon!”

She grabbed my arm and yanked, forcing me to continue up the trail. When we arrived at the creek, it was bathed in slanting rays of sunlight. It felt so much like a magical glade, I was tempted to start turning over rocks to look for fairies.

“Wow,” I breathed. “I'm usually more of a sunset girl, you know, because of my love for
sleep
and all, but this sunrise is really pretty.”

“Shhh,” Annabelle whispered.

“Oh, right,” I said, trying not to giggle again. “Less talking, more cleansing. So what do we do?”

Ceremoniously, Annabelle pulled a slip of paper and a pen out of her bag.

“Write down what you want to cast out of your mind,” she ordered.

I crouched down and pressed the paper to my knee.

Jacob,
I wrote.

Then I bit my lower lip. What was I saying, exactly? The last thing I wanted was to cast Jacob out of my life. Even though we'd known each other for such a short time, he somehow already felt like an essential part of me.

But he also made me feel this unwelcome wanting. Missing. I missed him, even though he was right here.

Then I realized that what I wanted and missed wasn't Jacob himself. It was
us—
the couple we should be instead of just friends.

No matter how much I loved talking to Jacob and walking with him and even flinging soapsuds all over an industrial kitchen with him, the “just friends” thing was torturing me.

When I released my lower lip from between my teeth, I was surprised to feel it trembling. Tears prickled behind my eyes. I clenched the pencil in my fist and muttered, “#$%^.”

“Whoa,” Annabelle said. “Where'd you learn
that
?”

“Oh, sorry,” I said, hoping she couldn't hear the tears in my
voice. “That's what happens when you hang around with a bunch of blacksmiths.”

“Maybe it's also what happens when a cute violinist has you in his crush clutches?” Annabelle asked, smiling at me sympathetically.

“Maybe,” I said. As I smiled back at her, a tear did squeeze out of my eye and trail down my cheek. I swiped it away and looked down at my little slip of paper again.

I amended it to say,
I want to stop yearning for more with Jacob. I want to be satisfied with the way things are.

I folded the paper into a tiny square and tried to hand it to Annabelle.