Say the Word (9 page)

“Lux! Hey, wait up!”

Crap
.

I sped up my pace, weaving between clusters of people in the crowded hallway as I headed for the exit. Once the final bell rang, the halls filled with a cacophony of
voices as my peers gossiped about the happenings of the day. I always made a point to visit my locker before last period so I could avoid the 3:00 p.m. corridor traffic jam and escape outside to catch my bus.

“Lux!” The voice was persistent and, if I wasn’t mistaken, faintly amused by my dodging efforts.

Maybe he’d give up if I just ignored him. He’d think I hadn’t heard his calls and move on. The exit was directly ahead, just ten feet away — I could make it.

“Hey!” His voice was closer now, definitely within hearing range and near enough for him to know that I’d either developed a hearing impairment overnight or was blatantly ignoring him.

Tough call.

Still intent on escape, I finally cleared the exit doors, relieved when they closed behind me to shut out the noisy hallway and my pursuer.

I hiked my backpack higher on my shoulder and started walking toward the bus stop.

“You know, I should be offended,” his voice whispered in my ear. I jumped about a foot into the air, whirling around to face him. I hadn’t even heard him exit the building — he must’ve made it outside before
the door swung closed.

He stood grinning down at me, the only spot of color in the dreary, bleached out January landscape. My breath caught in my throat at the sight of him. A lock of hair had fallen in front of his eyes, and I had the sudden urge to reach up and push it back for him. Internally cursing myself, I managed to keep my hands to myself.

“Most girls run
toward
me, not away as fast as their feet can carry them,” Sebastian noted. 

“Did you need something?” I asked quietly, my breath puffing visibly in the crisp air.

“Need? No.” He stepped closer to me, lifting one hand to rub at the light stubble on his jawline. “Want? Yes.”

“Well, what do you want?” My
voice practically squeaked with nerves. I moved back a step out of his space, casting my eyes down at the ground. The grass beneath my sneakers was dead and gray, flattened against the hard-packed earth.

“I want to give you a ride home.”

My eyes snapped away from my shoes, up to examine his face. His teasing grin was gone, in its place a serious expression. “Why?” I asked.

“Do I need a reason?”

“You’re Sebastian Covington,” I said, only just managing to leave off the implied
duh
at the end of that statement.

“And you’re Lux Kincaid,” he replied, the beginnings of a smile forming on his lips.

“So you see the problem here.” I spoke slowly, as if to a small child who wasn’t quite getting the concept.

“Nope,” he said, grinning
full out. “I don’t.”

I titled my head sideways. “Are you being purposefully obtuse?”

“I’m not sure. Let me think on it. Why don’t you ask me again while I’m driving you home?”

He leaned forward and grabbed my hand, lacing our fingers together as though it was the most natural thing in the world for the two of us — two strangers from completely different worlds, with nothing at all in common — to be holding hands. With a gentle tug, he pulled me in the opposite direction of the bus stop, toward the student parking lot.

“I don’t understand you,” I murmured quietly, the entirety of my attention riveted on the warm, unfamiliar point of contact between his palm and mine.

“See, the thing is, Lux,” he said in an equally quiet voice. “I think you might be the only one who can.”

I nearly laughed. What could I possibly understand about him? We had nothing in common.

No sooner had
the thought entered my mind, than an image of his face from that rainy day in the car last week flashed before my eyes.

I saw the bashful flush on his cheeks as he spoke of his love for music. Heard the underlying hurt as he casually dismissed his mother’s beliefs about his inadequacies. Replayed the uncertain canter of his voice as he talked about himself — as though he didn’t really know who he was.

Could it be that he was lonely? That, despite the popularity, despite the media attention his family drew — he was somehow alone? Unsure of himself, of who he was beneath the photoshopped image of Sebastian Covington that the rest of the world saw on magazine covers and news footage?

If so, that was something I could understand. Obviously not the fame or the attention, but the sheer loneliness of self-containment. The isolation of never letting down your walls, never letting your happy mask slip.

I’d been alone for a year without Jamie by my side. Sure, I still had him on weekends and during our brief after-school visits at the hospital. But it wasn’t the same. And a part of me was beginning to accept that it would never be the same again. Jamie was fading, slowly. Each day, each surgery, each round of chemo took him a little further away from me.

And that was a burden I shouldered all by myself.

I cast a glance up at Sebastian, who was staring down at me. Tentatively, I squeezed his hand and watched, mesmerized, as a smile bloomed across his face in response. He gave my hand a gentle squeeze in return and was opening his mouth to say something when a voice boomed across the courtyard, stopping us in our tracks.

“Sebastian! Come to The G
rill with us,” Amber called in a syrupy-sweet, arsenic-laced voice. Her dismissive gaze swept over me like a slap, and I tried not to let it bother me that her invitation wasn’t extended in my direction.

“Not today,
Amber,” Sebastian called back.

“I know you don’t have anything better going on.” She smirked, planting one hand on her hip in a suggestive pose. “And I’ll
make it worth your while.”

I felt my cheeks flame with embarrassment — I’d clearly misread
Sebastian’s intentions. I’d been foolish to assume that the coffee he’d given or the smiles we’d shared meant anything. Girls like Amber — who wore the right clothes and came from the good families — would always win. It wasn’t even a contest.

Already anticipating the dejection I’d feel when he walked away, I unlaced my fingers and started to pull my hand from Sebastian’s. His grip tightened immediately, locking our fingers together firmly so I had no hope of disengaging.

“Actually, Amber, I do have something better going on,” he tossed out casually, and I watched as Amber’s smirk became a look of shock. “You’ve met Lux, haven’t you?” Sebastian added.

I could hear the smile in his voice, but my eyes were still
trained on Amber. She’d stopped feigning sweetness and was glaring at me with the full brunt of her malice. She didn’t bother to reply, instead turning around with an audible huff and storming away with a silent Nicole close on her heels. We stood in silence for a frozen moment, neither knowing quite what to say to the other.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I murmured. “You should go with them. They’re you’re friends.”

“Hey,” he said, reaching under my chin and tilting my face up to meet his eyes. “I already have plans. Not with a friend, because this girl I’m with – she’s pretty stubborn and she hasn’t agreed to be my friend just yet. But I’m not worried. I’m persistent. I’ll wear her down eventually.”

I cracked a smile. “You seem pretty sure of yourself.”

“Well, Freckles,” he whispered eying the lightly-spackled bridge of my nose. “I’m Sebastian Covington.” His grin was rakish, his posture confident.

“
Freckles
?” I wrinkled my nose in distaste at the endearment. “That’s not a nickname.”

“Too late.” He laughed boyishly.

“Seriously, there’s no need dub me with a constant reminder of my imperfections.”

“They
aren’t imperfections. They’re cute,” he insisted. “I have a thing for freckles.”

I rolled my eyes.
“Let’s go, weirdo,” I said, walking toward the parking lot and tugging Sebastian behind me. There was a warm feeling spreading though my system, and as I let my eyes skitter over to meet his, I couldn’t help but grin — a full-out, happy, no-holds-barred grin — for the first time in months.

“Thanks,” I said. “For
Amber.”

“Believe me, Lux — it was my pleasure.”

“No way,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

“Why not?”

“You shouldn’t even be in here! In fact, I specifically asked to be dropped off at the front doors!”

“Yes, and?”

“And now you’re standing in front of my brother’s hospital room, acting like you’re coming in to visit with me!”

“Right, and?”

“And don’t you see the problem with that?”

“Nope.” He was grinning again. I growled in frustration. The boy was intolerable, really. In the space of thirty minutes, I’d gone from infatuated to indignant — no doubt some kind of record.

“Bash, you can’t come in with me. Jamie doesn’t know you. And it doesn’t make any sense for you to visit!”

“So you’re saying Jamie doesn’t want company?”

Ugh. He had me there. Jamie was
always
looking for company. He was bored stiff in that room all day, so any novelty was welcome. Several times, I’d caught him charming the candy stripers into neglecting their shifts and staying for extended visits, but that was probably just because he liked to look at their cute little red uniforms.

“Well, no. Not exactly,” I hedged.

“So you’re saying you don’t want to be seen with me?”

“No! That’
s not my point here,” I whispered in a frustrated voice. He was twisting my words, muddling my argument.

“What
is
your point, then?” he asked. “Because if Jamie wants visitors, I want to visit, and you have no issues with it… I don’t see the problem.”

“But— Well—” I spluttered, at a loss for words. Somehow this entire conversation had been steered out of my control, and I had no idea how to get it back. I opened my mouth to protest again, but froze abruptly when I heard it.

The sudden, unmistakable sound of the heart monitor in Jamie’s room as it stopped its rhythmic metronomic beeping, and instead released a horrifying, long tone that pierced the air and made every inch of my body break out in gooseflesh. I knew that sound — I spent my every waking moment dreading its arrival.

A flat line.

Jamie’s heart had stopped.

My terrified gaze met Sebastian’s for one suspended instant before I sprang into action, racing around the corner that concealed us from view and sprinting into Jamie’s room. 

“Help!” I called over my shoulder, hoping someone at the nearby nurse’s station would hear my cries. “His heart’s stopped!” I could feel the tears of panic gathering behind my eyes, and I sensed Sebastian’s presence close behind me as we stopped short at Jamie’s bedside. Distantly, I registered the sounds of nurses yelling for the crash cart, wheels and sneakers moving on the squeaky linoleum floors.

I looked at Jamie and felt my own heart stop.

“Hey, sis,” he said, grinning at me from his bed. I watched, dumbfounded, as he fiddled with the heart monitor wires on his right wrist. When the electrodes slid back into place, the flat line ceased abruptly and the sound of his strong, even heartbeats filled the room.

“Sorry, Wendy!” Jamie called to the harried woman in scrubs standing in the doorway. “False alarm. These dang electrodes just won’t stay on, today.” My head swiveled back and forth between them and I watched as he winked at her and she smiled in return.

“Haven’t you heard the story of the boy who cried wolf, James?” she asked with a disapproving
tsk
sound. “Just do me a favor and don’t mess with the wires when Benita is on the floor. She’s cranky enough these days.” With a playful wave in my direction, Wendy left the room, shooing out the crash cart response team as she went.

“So, sis, how goes
it?” Jamie asked, leaning back on his bed in a pose of full relaxation.

I stared at him, vibrating with anger. I heard Sebastian let out a snort of laughter behind me, and promptly elbowed him in the ribs.

“James Arthur Kincaid, you are in
so much trouble
!” I hissed, striding closer to the bed.

“Aw, come on sis. Don’t have a heart attack,” he joked. Looking around me to Sebastian, he asked, “Too soon?”

“You might want to let her cool down a little before throwing around the heart failure jokes,” Bash advised with a grin. I glared icily at them both in quick succession.

“What the hell were you doing, Jamie? Trying to scare me to death?” I asked.

“Oh, relax. Without my little flat line, you two would still be out in the hall bickering about whether Sebastian here could come in and see me, and my precious visiting hours would be wasting away,” he said. “Also, I want my contraband.”