The Pull of Destiny (49 page)

“Celsi, don’t be like this,”
he groaned quietly.

“I hate repeating myself, so
I won’t. I’m checking out now.”

And with that, I held my
Science text book upright, effectively hiding my face. Like that would stop
Luke.

“You’re gonna have to listen
to me sometime-,” he grumbled.

“Luke, the whole class is
listening to you! Do you take that much pleasure in being a disruptive
influence?”

I grinned happily behind my
book. Miss Swanson had had enough.
Thank God for easily annoyed teachers.

“I was just-,” Luke started,
trying to defend himself. But Miss Swanson wasn’t having that.

“Detention,” she said dourly.
And then dropped the bomb. “For both of you.”

I
know
she didn’t just
give me detention.

Dropping the book, I
exclaimed, “What? But I didn’t
do
anything!”

Miss Swanson rolled her eyes,
massaging her temples. “It’s too early in the morning for your wide-eyed
innocence act, Celsi. I’ll see you both in detention.”

Damn, damn, damn.

Luke turned and flashed me a
smile that really put me this close to punching his lights out. “See you in
detention,” he whispered gleefully, looking like Christmas had arrived two
weeks early and he had proof that not only was Santa real, he’d given him a
Lamborghini.

CHAPTER 20

the reason.

Luke’s Point of View

“Let me get this straight.”
An obligatory conceited grin twisted Ahmed’s lips and I groaned mutely. It was
always
something with him wasn’t it? Being friends with such a drama queen was
annoying! “You get detention for talking to Celsi Sawyer in class and you’re
actually
planning
on going to detention?” Ahmed gave me a probing look.
“What the fuck, Astor?”

I shrugged as I leaned
against the giant pillar by the school entrance. Ahmed was waiting for his ride
and I had decided to come tell him that I’d be staying at school for detention.
Unfortunately, he wanted to give me a hard time about it.

“What’s wrong with going to
detention?” I asked lazily, examining my nails closely.

Anything to avoid looking at
Ahmed, who was probably falling about laughing at just the thought of me
sitting in detention and having Miss Swanson shoot me dirty looks. Hell, I knew
I wasn’t looking forward to that, but if he laughed at me one more time...

Snorting, Ahmed said “The
fact that you never go to detention!”

Oh. Right.

“I’m on thin ice so I’m
trying to play by the rules.”

My excuse didn’t fool Ahmed.
“You were on thin ice last week and you still managed to bail on that detention
you got in English.” Ahmed shot me an assessing look that I pretended to ignore
as I stepped out of the way of a gaggle of giggling girls. “What’s really going
on?”

I turned my head to look at
Ahmed so fast I got a crick in my neck. Ahmed was the loudest, brashest, most
indifferent guy I knew, but did I detect a hint of concern in his voice?

He was staring at the cars
maneuvering in the parking lot so I couldn’t make out the expression on his
face. But if he really was concerned, maybe this was the right time to tell him
about the aneurysm. I needed an ally, especially if CiCi really was determined
to never talk to me again. God, I hoped not, but just in case... Could I really
trust Ahmed or was he going to be a dick about it?

 Biting my lip nervously, I
took a deep breath, my heart thumping erratically as I prepared to take this
irreversible step forward. What’s the worst that could happen? Maybe Ahmed
wouldn’t overreact. Right now, that’s all I needed- support. I didn’t even care
about my list; asking Ahmed to help me with it was just pushing things. The
list was my thing with CiCi and if she wasn’t around to help me with it, I
didn’t want to think about it.

“Yo, Ahmed. Can I ask you
something?” I asked slowly, not daring to look at him. I stared at my
Converse’s instead as my mind screamed ‘bad idea!’

“I’m not gonna let you wear
my three hundred dollar Cavalli jeans tomorrow,” Ahmed replied immediately,
shaking his head and smirking at me. “You’re way skinnier than me and you never
wear a belt. Nobody wants to see your
pants on the ground, pants on the
ground, lookin’ like a fool with your pants on the ground!”

I seriously should have seen
that one coming.

Snapping my mouth shut, I
stared at Ahmed as he got ‘pants on the ground’ out of his system, grinning at
me all the while.

Awesome to think I very
nearly entrusted my secret with this moron, huh?

“And why were you talking to
Celsi anyway?” Ahmed asked when he had sobered up. “I would imagine she hates
you.”

You have no idea.

I pasted an arrogant grin on
my face. “I was trying to get her to be my date for one of my dad’s weekend
lunches,” I lied, feeling like a jerk for even saying that but unable to think
of anything else that would fly. Ahmed was really enjoying this whole ‘using
Celsi’ situation, especially judging from the way he was pushing it down
Shazia’s throat whenever she was around.

Sneering, Ahmed said, “She
must be straight dumb if she said yes.”

“She hasn’t. Not yet. But I’m
planning to pull out all the stops in detention.”

Ahmed couldn’t keep the
admiring look off of his face as he clapped me on the back. “Luke Astor, you’re
a dirty dog,” he crowed.

“Hey, what can I say?” I
smirked, popping my collar. “She can’t resist my smile.”

So I’m lying. Shoot me.

“You still wanna hit that,
don’t you?” Ahmed cocked his head in the direction of an approaching Shazia,
who gave me a cold look. “Shaz will tell you that’s a no-no. Celsi hates you.”
I wasn’t even listening to him as he rambled on like he had the hotline into
CiCi’s mind. Shazia was holding a book. With a pang, I realized the book in her
hand was ‘Instant Connection’.

I muttered, “Shut up, Ahmed,”
out of the corner of my mouth, as Shazia stood next to her brother, open
hostility on her face as she looked at me. I swallowed hard.

 Why did I always do things
that made people mad at me? My dad was pissed at me because I was still
refusing to go to my therapist. The day I left to stay at Ahmed’s house, he’d
stormed into my room in a rage (in his defense, he was drunk) demanding to know
why the hell my therapist was charging him double for sessions I hadn’t shown
up to. When I explained that she was probably charging me double because I
wasn’t showing up (common sense, really) he exploded and threw his full bottle
of whisky into my TV. The TV exploded as well and I walked out.

And now here was Shazia
looking like she wanted to skin me alive and feed me to rats. Yikes.

“Whatever, Astor,” Ahmed said
idly as he spotted his ride, a slick, white limo, winding up to the school
entrance. “Gotta go. You staying over tonight?”

Shaking my head, I said,
“Nope, sorry dude. My sister wants me home.” I stretched my closed fisted hand
out to meet his. “Pound it.”

We fist bumped as Ahmed
laughed loudly. “My sister wants me home,” he said scornfully. “Daddy’s little
princess.”

“Sure, Ahmed,” I said, unperturbedly
as I rolled my eyes and walked away. I waved to Shazia as I left. “See you,
Shazia.”

She didn’t answer, just
glowered at me. I deserved it, I knew that much.

 That’s why I was going to
try to make things right between CiCi and me in detention. I was planning to
pull out all the stops, even though I was sure I was fighting a losing battle.
This was the second time I had dissed CiCi in front of my friends, the second
time I had made her beautiful eyes fill with tears. Why would she forgive me?
Her anger made perfect sense to me, even though it had really turned me on.
Angry CiCi was such a hellcat and as weird as it may seem, when her eyes were
flashing with anger, that was hot.

She was early to detention
(go figure). Her bag was on the floor next to her feet and a book was in her
hands. She gave no sign of even noticing my entrance into the room as I sat
down in the empty desk in front of her and turned my chair around to face her.

“Hey, Celsi,” I said
friendlily, smiling in her direction. No answer.

I was positive she wasn’t
even reading.

“You can’t ignore me forever,
you know,” I pointed out. “Sooner or later, you’re gonna have to talk to me.”

That worked. Slowly, she put
down her book and looked at me. She didn’t say anything, just stared till it
made me nervous. I grinned weakly at her. “Hi.”

“You don’t get it, do you?”
she said finally, her voice like music to my ears. Unfortunately, what she was
saying was all bad. Great. Still, at least she was talking, albeit in a voice
so cold I could almost see icicles forming.

“Get what?”

“I don’t want to talk to you.
I don’t want you talking to me. I just want to get through detention and leave.
So do me a favor and just shut up.”

The calmness of her voice
belied the fury raging in her eyes.

Impulsively, I reached over
and put my hands over hers. “I know you’re mad and you have a right to be. But
just-,” I started.

She pulled her hands away and
placed them safely in her lap. “If you say ‘let me explain’ one more time, I’ll
stab you in the eye with a pencil.”

I leaned back in my chair,
spreading my arms out wide. “Go ahead, do it.” CiCi’s mouth dropped open as she
gave me an ‘are you nuts’ look. I wasn’t joking. Maybe if she did something to
hurt me, it would make us slightly even. I hoped.

“You’re joking.”

I shook my head. “Nope. If it
makes you feel better, go for it. Slap me, pull my hair, spit on me- whatever
you want. Open season on Luke day. If it gets rid of some of your anger, that’s
fine with me. I deserve it. Hurt me like I hurt you.”

“No thanks.”

CiCi went back to
scrutinizing her book as I bit my lip, feeling perplexed.

“CiCi, listen-,” I started,
sighing.

“No, you listen.” CiCi looked
up again, this time brandishing her pencil. Her eyes were blazing again and I
licked my lips involuntarily. Shit. Could she get any hotter? I tried looking
at her lips in an effort to concentrate on what she was telling me, but got
sidetracked by the color of her gloss. Dark pink. God, they would probably
taste of strawberries. “You think I’m stupid enough to think that slapping you
will hurt you like you hurt me? What makes you think that? Actually, don’t tell
me. I won’t stoop to your level, Luke. I’m not going to slap you because that
won’t hurt you. So just shut up and keep your dumb ideas to yourself.” Her lip curled
as she gave me a scathing look. “And quit staring at me like that, you perve.”

My eyes widened as Miss
Swanson walked in.

“Okay, Luke, move to the
other end of the class,” she barked. “I don’t want to see you even look in
Celsi’s direction.”

Without saying anything, I
stood up and walked to the desk Miss Swanson was pointing at. She placed a file
in front of me. “This is work you simply haven’t bothered to do. I don’t expect
you to do all of it, but at least answer three questions.”

Okay. Miss Swanson was
effectively on my shit list.

I sat through detention
feeling frustrated every time I happened to glance in CiCi’s direction (which
was often). At the end of my ordeal, Miss Swanson called me up to her desk to
hand in my completed work. By the time I had walked out of the class, ready to
punch walls, CiCi was gone.

Misfire.

As I played with Faith later
on that night, (or more correctly, as Faith attempted to style my hair using a
mixture of gel and play-do) I realized that I only had one option left. Since
CiCi wasn’t going to listen to me, I had to swallow my pride and ask Shazia and
Robyn for help. There was no possible way they would help me, but I’d come this
far. I didn’t want to lose CiCi as a friend till I’d excised every possible
avenue. By asking her friends, the people who knew her best, I had nothing to
lose but my pride.