Tangled Thoughts (10 page)

Come see me during office hours

Ugh! I tried to look at Jack without looking at him. There was no way my assignment was that bad.
No way
. And he'd
promised
we weren't grading each other at the show. If I wasn't already so pissed at him, I'd have been pissed.

I went to rip the note off and check the damage, except I realized it was two notes. Underneath the ominous one was a second sticky.

Let me explain. Please?

Beneath that was a B+.

I peeked at Jack again to find him watching me, his expression the very definition of chagrin. I sighed. I couldn't avoid this—avoid him—all semester. He was still my TA. In the brief second our eyes met, I nodded. His expression melted into relief, a tiny smile bringing out that damned dimple. God, he was cute, and I was afraid—no,
sure
—my attraction to him was clouding my judgment.

I
WAITED
UNTIL
near the end of Jack's office hours to arrive. Then I waited at least three more minutes in the hall. I stood there doing some covert yoga breathing and
trying
to work out my emotions. I'd been trying to work them out for over a week now. The problem was I couldn't decide if I was being rational or just emotional. Or something. It wasn't Jack's fault he was who,
what
, he was, but I was still scared. If anyone had reason to be, I felt like I did.

“Office hours are usually
in
the office,” Jack said from the door and I jumped so high I was surprised I didn't hit my head on the ceiling. “Sorry.”

He looked good, leaning there, in his perfectly worn in shoes and Brooks Brothers casual. I wasn't used to guys who were so…put together. It didn't seem like he
tried
to dress like an executive-in-training. More like he was born to it. The look suited him and he owned it.

When I didn't move, he cleared his throat and said, “I'm glad you came. Did you want to come in? Or if not…well, I can apologize out here just as well.”

“That's the thing,” I said, finally finding my voice. “I'm not sure you actually have anything to apologize for.”
Also, I was just blatantly checking you out which I should
not
have been doing
.

“Why don't you come in and we'll figure it out. Fair?”

I nodded and followed him into the office. I wasn't sure what I expected, but it wasn't this. It was small and cramped and windowless, a rather miserable place to have to spend time, especially if any of the other three TAs were around. The scent of someone's cologne still lingered, which made me wonder how powerful it smelled when the wearer was actually
there
.

Jack sat at his assigned desk, furthest in the corner, forcing his visitors to sit awkwardly out past the other two. I called to him, “No offense, but how do you stand it in here?”

He grinned. At least I think he did, in the murky office distance. He rolled his chair forward, past the other desks, until he was positioned across from me on the opposite wall. “What?” he said. “You don't like my cave?” I laughed, breaking a bubble of tension that had lingered between us. “I assure you,” he went on, “my cavemates are as charming as our shared space. Maybe you'll even meet them.”

“If I'm lucky, right?”

“Right.” He leaned back in his chair, more relaxed now. Glancing at his watch, he pushed the door until it was almost closed. “Do you mind?” he asked, looking at me and waiting for permission to close it all the way.

Strange
, I thought. In high school, this would never have been allowed, being closed together in such a…
private
space. The hardest thing to get used to in college was
freedom
. Plenty of opportunity to make your own decisions, and your own mistakes. I hoped this wasn't one. I nodded.

“Thanks,” Jack said. The door closed with little more than a click. “Hours are almost over anyway. I thought our conversation could benefit from a little…discretion.” He looked at me when he said this, and I cleared my throat.

“Yeah. Probably. I kind of got out of the habit of worrying about that.”

“It's nice, isn't it?” he agreed. “My grandfather liked to say my most important class every year at Webber was discretion. My father, on the other hand, called it
stress
. You don't realize how stressful it is
actively
keeping a secret every day until you don't have to do it anymore. I assume it's the same at 'Brook.”

“'Brook?” I teased. “Is that the slang?”

He grinned. “It is. For us anyway. I guess I don't know if it's derogatory.”

“Why even bother? It's not like
Northbrook
is so long. It's the same number of syllables as Webber!”

“But it's a compound word. Much more snooty sounding.”

I laughed. We were joking. About secrets and
compound words
. I'd come here a ball of stress and now I was sitting casually with my knees tucked next to me and my bag thrown on the floor. I wasn't even sure how it happened.

“Well, that's certainly better than the expression you left me with the other night. Maybe I haven't completely fucked this up?” Another thing that would never happen in high school. But he was smiling, not tense but more like hopeful. It made me unsettled, though not necessarily in a bad way. Like the dichotomy of power between us wasn't all that uneven.

“About that…” My lips were dry, so I wet them, and I was pretty sure he watched the movement with interest. I didn't know how to put into words what I'd been feeling without examining all the underlying mess more closely than I wanted to, but Jack saved me from it. He held up his hand.

“I think I understand. And I'm sorry.”

“I
think
,” I said, “I'm sorry too.”

“No no.” He shook a finger at me and I tried not to giggle. “This is
my
apology. I get what happened now. I'd never seen someone react so negatively before. Usually, I mean, there aren't
really
that many of us, despite how it feels when we're all smashed together at our academies. Other people I've met are always excited. But I understand why it was different for you: because I knew something about you that you didn't know about me.”

Yes
. That was exactly it. I nodded. “I mean, I guess just because someone went to Webber doesn't guarantee they're Sententia—”

He let his eyes widen. “What? What's that?”

“Oh. Sorry. For guys? It means impotent…”

“
Definitely
not Sententia then.”

Laughing, I asked, “So what
are
you?” I knew the impropriety of asking so directly, but we were already being improper.

After a beat he said, “My grandfather says I'm a no-good Herald,” and winked. I must have pulled a face because he laughed. “What? Don't like Heralds?”

“No!” I said, then blushed as I realized how that must sound. “Shit. I mean no, it's not that. I don't even know many of you. It's just that one of them…isn't my favorite person.” Heralds were what I thought of as just below Thought Movers in the Sententia hierarchy. Their gifts projected onto others. They didn't have impetus—they couldn't force anything—but they had influence. Alexis Morrow was a Herald.

Jack produced a slow, knowing smile, one that was strangely seductive. It made me think he had secrets, ones I'd like to find out. I didn't realize I was distractedly staring at his lips until they moved. “A rival, huh?” he said.

I was pretty sure my blush got deeper. “No.” Lie. “Well, sort of. But mostly she was just a bitch.”

“I've known a few of those myself,” he said, nodding. “Sometimes it comes with the territory. There's plenty of conceit to go around
when you're…special, like we all are, but I think Heralds tend to be the most conceited of the bunch. It's easy to get caught up in the effects of your own abilities.” I understood that fully, since my abilities inevitably gave me moments of morbidity. “And you?” he prompted. “If you'd care to share.”

“What, it's not in my file?”

He gave a little smile and shake of his head. “Unfortunately, they don't note it on your transcript. Though if your grades are any indication, I'd suspect you were a
Lumen
.”

On a whim, I told him, “I'm a Thought Mover.” It was mostly true.

“Really?” He seemed…surprised, but pleasantly so. He smiled again, appraising me.

“What? Don't like us?” At that he outright chuckled, a deep sound that made my toes tingle. I shifted my legs out from under me. “Or maybe you've never met one before?”

“Never one so pretty,” he quipped, and it was the kind of thing he
shouldn't
say, that should have had me bolting from his office out of anger or at least a sense of self-preservation. But whether I should or not, I liked it. Which fact
also
should have sent me running, but instead had me blushing and looking at my knees. “Or so dangerous,” he added, and my euphoria disappeared.

I jerked my head up so quickly it almost hurt. “What?”

Jack held up his hands, palms out. “Sorry,” he said, and it sounded sincere. He cleared his throat and straightened his funny tie—unnecessarily, since he seemed to prefer it a little askew—smoothing his fingers over the silk. “I was going to say you move my thoughts without trying, which is the truth, but entirely inappropriate. Like several things I've said today. So. Sorry,” he repeated.

His chair creaked as he shifted, and I blushed harder. I couldn't understand why I hadn't passed out yet, because all of my blood had to be in my face. “Apology accepted,” I said finally.

He wiped a hand over his face. “God, this job is harder than he made it sound!”

“Who?”

“What?”

I giggled. “Harder than who made it sound?”

“Shit,” Jack muttered before he stood abruptly and strode to his desk, back turned to me. In the small office, I felt his breeze as he passed. “Professor Gupta, of course.” He checked his phone and typed a few letters before shaking his head and returning to the chair across from me. He turned the phone over in his hands as he spoke. “This…wasn't my plan. But the offer came and I couldn't turn it down. I hadn't wanted to, but even if I did, Grandfather would have, uh, convinced me otherwise. And it's turned out to be not what I expected.”

“I'm sorry.”

“No! God, I'm a complete ass. Complaining while I sit here with you. It's not what I expected in bad and good ways, don't worry. Never worry about me.”

“I'll…try not to,” I said, because I couldn't promise I wouldn't. I was intrigued by this moment, where Jack's easy charm had slipped to reveal someone who was maybe a little unsure and still trying to figure things out. It made him seem so
real
, so like me, and I wanted to know that Jack as well as the cool, relaxed one. “Your grandfather sounds pretty tough.”

He exhaled forcefully through his nose. “That's a nice way to put it. But you didn't come here to talk about my family issues.”

“That is
exactly
why I came here,” I said and he cracked a smile. “Don't we all have family issues?”

“Do we? What are yours?”

If only. My
real
family issues weren't for the telling. I fussed with some strands of my hair that had fallen over my shoulder. “It's more a
lack of family
issue for me, honestly.”

After a beat, he said, “I'm going to guess the
real
issue is with your extended
Sententia
family.” Nailed it. “Is that why you only went to Northbrook for two years?”

“Um, no, not exactly. It's a long story.”

“I've got nowhere to be.” He checked the time on his phone to confirm. Neither did I. My classes were over for the day.

What the hell
, I thought.
Why not?
I took one deep breath and plunged. “See, I didn't even know I was Sententia until I got to Northbrook. It was…well, it was a lot of things, but I'll just go with overwhelming. I thought I was getting away from it when I left there. So, yeah, when you said you went to Webber, I freaked.”

“That's actually true? You really didn't know what you, what
we
were until, what, two years ago?” I shook my head. “That's crazy.”

“Pretty much.”

With the toe of his shoe, Jack absently moved his chair back and forth. “So, how did you even…?”

How to explain without spending the entire night in his cramped, dark office? “It really is a long story. How about I give you the highlights?”

“I'm listening.”

“Okay. Listen really closely, because I don't repeat myself.” He stilled his chair and leaned forward, arms resting on his knees and hands folded. I grinned at him. “Perfect. Ready? Once there was a little girl whose parents died and was raised by her world-traveling Godmother, and when the girl turned thirteen and started to grow up and go crazy in the brain, her doctors decided she couldn't be a world traveler anymore and an opportunity from her
dad's
past came up and landed her at a special school where she found out she
wasn't
crazy, fell
in love, met her best friend, saved a girl's life, broke a heart, and doesn't ever plan to go back. The end.” I leaned my head back and took a deep breath, winded by the time I finished. It felt good, though, to unburden.

Jack sat up and was quiet for a few seconds, his toe moving his chair again as if he didn't realize he was doing it. Finally, “Saved a life?”

“Another long story, but yes.” And really, I should have said
ruined
. I was hardly the hero of that story.

After another pause, Jack said, “I'm sorry about your parents.”