Undertow (11 page)

I quickly changed the subject. “Can I ask why you live on a yacht?”

“Kian and I like to travel a lot,” said Raef. “And we don’t want to be locked into any one place. If we bought a house, we would have to deal with what to do with it if we wanted to leave. This house goes wherever we want as long as there is water.” 

He went quiet for a moment and then looked at me, “And we have never had a reason to stay in any one place . . . in the past.”

Was he telling me that he had a reason to finally settle into one place?  Could that reason be
me
?  Or was he saying he wasn’t planning on staying?  UGH!  He was maddening to decipher.

My phone began vibrating in my pocket. I fumbled for it and snapped it open. “Yeah, I’m just studying with a friend,” I said to Mae, who wanted details. I sort of skirted some of the finer points as I watched Raef head over to the pot on the stove and pulled down a bowl as I talked. I told Mae I would be home within an hour and she seemed fine with that answer.

I tucked the phone back in my pocket as Raef slid a bowl of soup across the counter to me along with a glass of ice water.

“Studying with a friend, huh?”

“Yeah, uh, she would probably flip if she knew about the motorcycle.”
And you,
I thought to myself. “She’s leaving on this two week trip to Europe in a few weeks and she has saved for it forever. I just don’t want her to think she can’t trust me enough not to go. It’s her dream to travel overseas. We had discussed it all before moving here.” 

I looked to Raef who was leaning against the sink. “Aren’t you going to have some?” I asked, feeling like a glutton.

“No. I’m fine.”

“You sure? It’s really good.”

“Nah. Soup is not really my thing,” he said with a smile.

Weirdest. Boy. Ever.

A half hour later, Raef had brought me back to the high school parking lot. As I drove home in my Jeep, I replayed the moment Raef and I shared in his bedroom, adding a few fictional rewrites as I daydreamed.

Soon, however, something began nagging me.

By the time I pulled into the driveway of my magnificent home, I knew what it was.

Raef had complimented my bed, which would have been fine except for the fact that he had never been in my bedroom.

Ever.

I looked up at my room’s window and suddenly felt uneasy.

8

Tuesday was destined to suck
,
mainly because Nikki had yet to retaliate. Surprisingly, however, I hadn’t seen the bitter bombshell anywhere. When gym rolled around just before lunch, I was downright giddy.

Walking out to the soccer field, I actually started to believe another day would squeak by without retribution. But once I got onto the field, my scrap of hope was shredded. Nikki, curvy co-captain of the BHS WAVES field hockey squad, was standing mid-field, waiting with her team to play
our
class.

I always did loathe Tuesdays.

Forty minutes later, my hatred for field hockey was in full bloom, courtesy of Nikki.  Whoever thought it was a good idea to combine Tag with wooden golf clubs and a rodent-size ball should be beaten senseless. 

Attempting to do all three was a bad combination for me, and I ended up tripping one of Nikki’s teammates, who took a digger in the dirt. Nikki retuned the favor a few minutes later by “accidentally” knocking me hard into the goal post, face first. 

It was like kissing concrete at a high rate of speed.

The impact nearly knocked me out, and I was sure that I was going to have a permanent indent on the side of my face. 

As we walked back to the locker room, I could hear Nikki laughing with her teammates, no doubt at me. All I wanted was a hot shower and to get through the last two hours of the day without committing a homicide.

In the locker room, my face continued to pound under the shower’s warm spray, but I took my time, not wanting to face any of the other girls.  I listened carefully and the voices dwindled until only the sound of the shower echoed in the musty room.

I knew I was going to be late for lunch, but I no longer cared. I simply wanted the water to wash away the day. I started visualizing smacking Nikki repeatedly with the wooden stick, but exhaustion from her constant harassment was starting to take its toll.              

My throat started to tighten, but I fought back the tears, taking slow breaths to quell my mutinous emotions. I turned my face up into the shower stream one last time and reluctantly turned the flow off.

Squeezing out my rope of hair, I pulled the towel off its hook and wrapped it around me. But as I pulled the curtain back, I knew with absolute certainty that Nikki was the Devil. The clothes that I had left so neatly folded on the bench outside the shower, were GONE. I frantically scanned the room, but saw no clothes. Anywhere.

“No! Oh no no no!” I stepped out of the shower and onto the cold concrete floor. I rushed around the room, searching for my missing jeans and top. My steps were leaving a detailed map of wet footprints chronicling my frantic search.

Finally I found them, crumpled and soaked, in the furthest sink. I started ringing them out, my towel providing scant warmth against the chilly locker room.
“See Eila,”
I thought, chastising myself, “
This, THIS is why we should never leave our clothes unattended with serial nut jobs lurking
!”

As I finished squeezing the last of the water from my jeans, I realized that my gym clothes AND UNDERWEAR were not among the dripping pile. Where I was simply irritated before at being stuck in dirty gym clothes for the remainder of the school day, now I was horrified. I had nothing to wear. AT ALL! I stood there, staring down at my pile of clothes in the creamy sink, debating what to do next.

Did I dare walk out of the room, wrapped in a towel, and try to make it to my locker to get my keys? Then what? Drive home half naked?

I could see myself walking through the sea of students, enduring stares and laughs. I had a nightmarish vision of accidentally dropping my towel as I passed the guidance office.

Dashing to my locker was clearly not an option.

As the realization of my predicament set in, I could feel my face getting hot
- a combination of rage and humiliation that made the sudden tears running down my cheeks feel like fire.

I slumped down against the center row of gray lockers, feeling defeated as I rested my forehead on my knees. I tried to figure out what would happen if I were stuck in the locker room for hours on end when I heard a quiet knock on the locker room door. 

The heavy steel door cracked open and Raef’s voice rolled through from the outside. “Eila? Are you in here?” he said in a near whisper.

I hurriedly wiped my tears and nose and staggered to my feet. I cleared my throat so he wouldn’t know I had been crying. “Uh, yeah. I’m here,” I responded, padding in my bare feet over to the door. The large mirror on the wall displayed my half-naked form, complete with a growing bruise on my face. I was going to look like a Jack-O-Lantern two weeks after Halloween once it formed.

I spoke to the door, but kept myself tucked behind it and out of sight. “I seem to be having a, uh, wardrobe issue.”

“I suspected as much,” he said reaching through the door without showing his face, his hand mercifully holding my ratty gym clothes. “I think you are missing these.”

“My clothes! How did you find them?” I asked, highly relieved and yet mortified that he was holding muddy sweats
and
undies.

“I was worried when you weren’t at lunch. When MJ got to the cafeteria, he said the school was buzzing about you and Nikki having quite the fisticuffs on the soccer field. I came here figuring you were getting cleaned up, but found your clothes scattered in the hallway.”

I stood there in my towel for a moment, replaying the incident. My face throbbed and I knew it would look quite horrific in a few more hours. I quickly made up my mind to tell Mae I was just a fumble-footed teen who damaged herself during gym. She need not know about the hellish prom queen or my knight.

I stepped forward and took the clothes from his hand. My fingers brushed his and as he released my clothes, he grasped my hand firmly.  His voice was right on the opposite side of the door.

“Let me see,” he said, his words quiet, but laced with anger. He wanted to know what Nikki had done on the field.

He squeezed my hand, encouragingly. “Eila, let me see,” he said again, softly this time. Embarrassed though I was, I forced myself forward, peeking my face through the crack in the door. His deep blue eyes came into view and nearly took my breath away.

I could see his face reflect a torrent of emotions, from pain and frustration to rage. He reached up slowly, and gingerly touched the edge of the welting bruise. His hand continued tracing my face and he gently felt my brow bone and under my eye. I winced and he carefully softened his touch.

“Sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I was worried she might have broken something.” His hand slowly slid down my jaw line and came to rest at the side of my neck. My body was electrified by his touch and I was certain he could feel my now racing pulse.

Watching him, I started to notice that his irises seem to darken, the ocean blue becoming a shade of midnight. The slow evolution of color was mesmerizing . . . until it suddenly shifted to jet-black.

I gasped and stiffened.

Raef quickly dropped his hand, alarmed. “Are you alright?” he asked shaken, his own breath quick. His eyes were back to their normal yet spectacular deep blue. 

My heart had been jolted into a sprint. “I, uh should probably get, um, dressed,” I said uneasily. I gathered my clothes close to my chest and looked one more time at his eyes.

“Are you sure you are alright? You could have a concussion,” said Raef, controlled, but his face now worried.

I was slowly recovering my mental state. “Yeah, uh, I’m okay, though my face is humming,” I said, still watching him carefully. What in the hell was that? Good grief maybe I do have a concussion. I managed to pull my scrambled brain together. “I’m going to look hideous though in a few hours,” I said, a half-hearted smile crossing my face.

“Nah,” he said, raising my face with his hand under my chin so he could see me. “You could never be hideous.”

My eye was starting to water from the sting of the bruise, forcing a tear down the battered curve of my face and into his palm. His smile fell as he wiped away the path of my tear with his thumb.

I wanted to be strong. I wanted to be unbreakable, but with him it was difficult to continue to fuel the charade. My throat was once again tightening, and I took a deep breath, trying to squelch my mental and physical scars. He saw my struggle – my attempt to be brave, but my stoicism was wilting away.

Watching me, his usually reserved demeanor disappeared. He pushed the door open and pulled me into his strong arms. I rubbed my face on his warm sweatshirt and he held me tighter in a safe embrace.

The magnetic draw he had on me was a near-audible hum in my head. While I could have remained ensconced in his arms for hours, he seemed to recover his “friendship-only” badge after a minute and released me, but held my shoulders. I wobbled slightly, woozy and high from our close encounter.

“You’ll be okay, Eila. You are stronger than you think,” he said, a tad too serious. I nodded drunkenly. “I am still worried though, about a concussion. You look a bit unstable.”  I bet I did.

I managed to solidify my legs and focus on the task of getting dressed. “I’m fine,” I said, rubbing my forehead and debating the veracity of that statement. “I just have a pounding headache.”

“Well, I’m still going to stand outside the door, but if I hear the thud of your unconscious self hitting the floor, I’m coming in,” he said, releasing me. “I’ll be right here,” and he pulled the door shut.

I stood there for a moment more, staring at the door and absorbing our brief, but intimate, moment.  It was something I had desired from him for so long, yet something just felt off.  Of course, my face meeting the goal post may have something to do with my stomach doing flip-flops. 

I couldn’t get past the fact, however, that the butterflies I developed around Raef always behaved like a panicked mob. And what on earth did I see in his eyes?

That wasn’t even possible, was it?

I let out a long, slow breath and turned toward the counter, the mirror watching me approach. I dropped my towel and got dressed, thanking every star in heaven that Raef had decided to come looking for me.  

When I finally emerged, my humiliation had been replaced by a strong desire to choke Nikki.  Raef was waiting for me as promised, leaning against the wall.

“I am so done with this place for today, maybe even for the week!” I said, infuriated.  “My head is pounding, I have on smelly gym clothes and there are grass burns in places I can’t mention.” I tied my sneakers in a brutish fashion, nearly snapping off a shoelace.

“I agree. Done for the day sounds good. I’ll drive you home,” said Raef, watching me.

“You don’t have to do that,” I replied, though not protesting his chivalry nearly enough.

“You can’t drive after a blow to the head like that. I would feel better taking you myself.”  He opened the exit door, which let out a chirp. “Don’t worry. I already had the nurse clear you to leave.”

“Thanks Raef,” I said.

“Anytime,” he replied.

Later that night over dinner, Mae wanted every detail of why I looked like Two-Face from the Batman Comics. I went through the whole field hockey game, but changed the ending. I told her I had stumbled and fallen into the goal post. Adding the deranged cheerleader would have been counter-productive if I wanted her to still go on her trip. I also left out my handsome hero.

That night I
lay in bed with a cold cloth on my throbbing face.  I replayed the day, skipping the more unappealing instances and dwelling more on the fantasy portion involving Raef.

The way he touched me, and how I felt when he did, was near intoxicating.  I toyed with the moment repeatedly while staring at my ceiling.  As I started to sway towards sleep, the memory of the day started to take on a life of its own and, unbidden, I saw Raef’s eyes turn black.

Every time I tried to ignore the moment and throw it to the back of my mind, it would slowly rise to the surface.
Not possible,
I kept telling myself over and over, and eventually my memory began to bend in the direction I wanted it to. 

Finally content with my dreaming, I drifted off to sleep, but my mind stopped replaying my edited version of Raef and proceeded back to the man who had watched me from the shadows. I pulled my blankets tighter around me and not even my memory of Raef could comfort me.