The Athena Effect (19 page)

She nestled against Calvin, her lips curling into a smile on the back of his neck. They were about halfway home when he pulled to the side of the roadway, stopping to climb off. He took his helmet off, set it aside and reached over to remove hers.

“Why are we stopping he–”

He took her face between his hands and kissed her, sweet and slow. It started out warm and comforting, like wood-smoke and butterscotch candy, and built to a bright burning red that made her stomach quiver. The roar of traffic rushing by was drowned out by the sound of her heart pounding in her ears.

When they finally broke apart she was dizzy.

“I wasn’t going to make it all the way home,” he explained. He embraced her once more, handing her back her helmet.

Then they were back on the road, and Caledonia clung to him tightly, happy in a way she’d never imagined she could be. She thought about the art museum, and the painting that her mother had loved so much. There was something else her mother had told her about her parent’s date at the museum– something that made her heart skip a beat when she thought about it.

It was on that exact spot, standing in front of that same painting so many years ago, that her parents had shared their first kiss.

~

Chapter Fourteen – QUESTIONS

~

They pulled up at Calvin’s house to see a dozen big motorcycles parked in the front yard. He was disappointed because he wanted to be alone with Caledonia, and suddenly afraid that his brother’s rough crowd might put her off again.

“Let’s go get something to eat,” he suggested, relieved when she agreed.

He took her to a Chinese restaurant with red and gold walls and a giant fish tank on one side of the room. They were seated in a booth next to the tank, and once again, Calvin watched Caledonia’s enormous eyes scan the room, taking in every detail.

She smiled across the table at him, “It smells good in here.”

A waiter approached, bringing them a pot of tea and pouring it into small china cups. Caledonia watched closely and flashed another brilliant smile at him, taking the menu he offered and studying it, her brows knit together in concentration.

She looked up at Calvin with serious eyes, “What if I pick the wrong thing?”

He chuckled, “What do you like?”

She looked back at the menu, “I don’t know. There’s too much to choose from.” She bit her lip, so worried that Calvin had to fight the urge to lunge over the table and kiss the look right off her face.

“I can order if you want,” he offered.

She set the menu down with a relieved look, “Yes please.”

Calvin told the waiter that she’d never tried Chinese food before, asking him for suggestions. He ended up ordering more food than they needed, wanting to show her as many new things as possible. Caledonia turned around to inspect the fish tank, fascinated by the fancy goldfish with huge bulging heads and diaphanous tails.

“Look how bizarre…” she said, pointing to one with telescoping eyes.

He got up to slide into the booth next to her, watching her watching the fish. He rested his chin on her shoulder, and before too long he was trailing kisses down her neck, making her squirm and giggle.

“What happened here?” He brushed his lips across two round marks just above her collarbone, “Vampire?”

She shivered a little at the sensation, “I told you the cat dragged me… Didn’t I?” She pulled the collar of her shirt down a little to show him two corresponding puncture scars on her back, “That’s where he bit into me.”

Calvin groaned, pulling her closer. The image of a cougar closing its jaws on her was a terrible one, and he kissed her scars again, swearing to never let anything bad happen to her again. He wanted to protect her, and she could feel it, sweet and warm and purple and pink. Her parents used to feel the same way.

The waiter arrived with a tray and Calvin got up to sit opposite her, eager to see her reaction. The man set two soup bowls down with a flourish, placing a pile of browned rice in each and ladling broth over them. He stood back to watch the expression on Caledonia’s face as the soup exploded with cracking popping sounds.

She sat bolt upright, reeling back in her seat with her eyes wide open, “What’s it doing?”

“Sizzling Rice,” the waiter said with a wink.

Her eyes darted back and forth between the waiter and Calvin, and she finally smiled, breaking into delighted laughter that they couldn’t help but join in.

“That was my favorite when I was a kid,” Calvin said, remembering.

The dishes started arriving fast and furious, and the waiter presented each one to her personally, describing it in detail as if she were a visiting dignitary. They dug in, and the waiter came around often, anxious to please her.

“Everybody loves you,” Calvin smiled, feeling happy.

“That’s not true,” she replied, thinking about the girls at school. “But it’s nice of you to say it.”

After they finished eating, Caledonia leaned back with a sigh, “There’s too much food here. What a terrible waste.”

“It’s okay. We can take it home.”

She seemed surprised, “They let you do that?”

He smiled at her again, wondering how she could be such a contradiction. She knew so much, and yet almost nothing at the same time. He paused for a second, thinking about how she was about food.

“How come you don’t eat at your aunt’s house?”

She stiffened in her seat, looking down and fidgeting with her fingernails.

“Tell me,” he said, and something in his voice demanded the truth. She looked up to meet his eyes.

“My aunt works a lot…” she started out.

“And?” he leaned forward intensely.

“I don’t like to be there when she’s not around.”

Calvin’s eyes widened. He remembered the big jerk that had answered the door and clenched his jaw with a flash of anger, “Why?”

“I don’t like her boyfriend.”

He sat up straight, “Why?”

“He’s always trying to–” she looked down again, ashamed.

His voice rose, “Trying to
what
?”
 

Calvin was so upset it was overwhelming, and she was alarmed at his intense reaction. “I just don’t like the way he looks at me.” She started backpedaling, “It’s only when he drinks… and nothing’s happened yet… not really.”

He burned hot with anger that she could feel from across the table, “So that’s why you’ve been wandering around outside at night? To keep away from
him
?”

“Yeah,” she admitted.

“I’ll kill him!”

She looked up at him incredulously, “If I wanted him dead, I would have done it myself.”

He clenched his fists, “Does your aunt know? What does she say?”

“He denies it… And she believes him. She wants to believe him.”

“I’m gonna kick his ass!” Calvin hissed, and from the colors he was putting off, she didn’t doubt he was planning it.

“No! Please don’t do anything,” she tried to reassure him, surprised to see him getting so worked up. “I have the situation under control.”

“If he so much as looks at you…” his voice was dripping with menace.

“It’s okay now. I figured out how to stop him. I can… scare… him. He won’t be bothering me anymore. And now that school’s going to be out I can get a job to save enough money to get away.”

He paused, taking a deep breath and exhaling, “Is he why you want to leave?”

She nodded yes.

He pressed his lips together tight, unclenching his fists despite his lingering anger. “You did your thing… Right? To him? That’s how you got your money back.”

She nodded, looking away with embarrassment, “Yeah. I’m getting a lot better at it.”

He took her hand across the table, “If he ever bothers you again, I want you to come to me... Okay?”

She remembered the last time she’d run to him for help, only to find a girl on his lap just moments after he’d dropped her off. Her stomach churned when she remembered how it felt, and she realized that nothing had really changed. Her parents had told her to trust no-one, and yet here she was, confessing everything; admitting to what she could do. She withdrew her hand.

“I can handle Phil,” she said.

“I just want to help,” he said.

She could tell he did, but she was confused and afraid. The thought of Calvin kissing another girl again scared her much more than Phil ever did, and she remembered what Brandy had said about guys not being able to control themselves.

The waiter came to take their plates, bringing them two fortune cookies.

“These ones are true,” he told Caledonia with a wink.

Calvin demonstrated how to snap open the cookie to find the little slip of paper inside.

“I read about these in a story once,” she said somberly. She read hers aloud, “Change is coming soon,” She looked up at him with scrutinizing eyes, “I suppose that’s always true.”

He read his, “Your wish will come true.”

“What do you wish for?” she asked him.

He looked at her intensely, “I don’t want you to go away.”

She looked down, afraid to trust what she saw right before her eyes. When they got up to leave, Calvin escorted her out the door, his warm hand pressing on the small of her back. They got to the bike and he folded his strong arms around her, burrowing his face in her hair and breathing in deeply.

He pulled back to look at her, stroking her cheek softly and forcing her to lock eyes with him. “What color am I putting out right now?”

She gasped. He was doing it again, flooding her with colors so intense that she felt she might drown in them. “Pink,” she breathed.

“Pink?!”

She couldn’t help smiling at the look on his face, “There’s some purple too… and red.”

“What color are you?” he asked, searching her phenomenal eyes.

“Same,” she whispered.

“Is that good?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” she answered honestly.

He drew her back into his chest, and she could feel his heart pounding against hers.

“It feels good to me,” he whispered in her ear. “You have no idea what you do to me.”

She froze, suddenly serious. She reeled back to look up at him with big fearful eyes, “I swear I’m not doing anything.”

He smiled, cupping her chin and looking at her with his eyes wide open, “Whatever it is, I like it.”

She watched his face as he leaned in to kiss her, overwhelmed by the flood of emotions washing over her again. She couldn’t tell where his began and hers stopped, and she’d never felt anything so intense in her entire life. I might not have to leave, she thought again, and the idea made her shiver inside.

He pulled up to her aunt’s house, reluctant to drop her off. She reassured him again that she’d be fine, and agreed to let him take her to school in the morning. She climbed down from the bike only to be wrapped back up into his enthusiastic embrace.

“Thank you,” she said solemnly between his goodbye kisses. “Thank you for taking me to the museum…” He swooped in to kiss her. “And for the Chinese food... And showing me the sea…” He kissed her again, “And... Just– just everything.” He sent her off with one last kiss that had them both reeling, and she stumbled in the door and up to her room. She got into bed and hugged the pillow, her mind a tumult of confusion.

Caledonia spent hours lying awake, her head and her heart fighting a vicious battle over whether or not she should trust Calvin. She thought about his ardent kisses and blushed, smiling at the memory of how it felt. Then she remembered that his lips had been all over another girl not so very long ago. She flushed an ugly envious green that quickly turned to deep blue shame.

Now that she knew what Calvin’s kisses tasted like, she couldn’t stop thinking about kissing him again. She could no longer see things clearly when she was around him; her logical thoughts were drowned in a sea of emotion. She needed to be away from his intense colors to get some perspective, but the only place she really wanted to be was with him.

She had witnessed his nature with her own two eyes. He was reckless, both with his own safety and with the feelings of others. The way he callously toyed with girls was a red flag; Caledonia knew she would be a fool to ignore it. But she wanted to. She wanted to believe that his colors would never change– she wanted to believe in him with all of her heart. She thought about her Aunt Angie, and how deluded she was about Phil.

Calvin was making her parent’s little cabin in the woods start to seem less like a refuge and more like a lonely and desolate place. If she stayed she was afraid she would end up behaving like a fool, or worse, be left behind, drowning in his wake like one of the sad girls from school.

That night, both Calvin and Caledonia lay in bed awake a long time, thinking about each other. The last thought that crossed both of their minds was their first kiss in the museum, and they each brought their fingers to their lips, in awe at the power of it.

~

When Caledonia left for school the next morning, he was right there, waiting outside her front door.