Velvet (34 page)

As soon as we walked through the front door, Lucian ran to meet us, sliding breathlessly to a halt. He looked up with a smile that slowly faded as he looked first at Adrian, then at me, then back at Adrian, then again at me.

He didn’t know who to hug first.

Adrian made the decision easy—he walked into the hall leading to the east wing, leaving us behind. Lucian stared after him.

“Wanna come help me?” I asked, to distract him.

He turned and half smiled at me. I gave him a quick squeeze and ruffled his hair like Adrian always did and we headed upstairs to my studio. Pulling out the sketch I’d designed (and Trish had approved), I ran my hands over the bolts of fabric until I found the one I was looking for. It would be insanely hard to make, mostly because the fabric was difficult to work with. If you messed up, you had to cut it off and start all over. That’s just how velvet was.

I pulled the bolt and laid it on the cutting table, envisioning the pieces in my head. If I was careful, I would have just enough material to pull this off. Nervous, I set the velvet aside and pulled out the dollar-a-yard muslin instead, planning to create the pattern with it first in case I messed up. Usually I had my mom at my side, harping about aligning the grains and offering alternative stitches and little tricks she’d made up over the years. All of that was tucked away safely in my head, and I could recall her voice perfectly from the hundreds of times we’d done this together. It felt right to be working on something again. It felt, almost, like she was with me.

A few hours later, Lucian and I headed downstairs to have dinner with Mariana and Dominic and, of course, Adrian. A sumptuous meal was laid out, but simply being in this house made me lose my appetite. I picked at my food while everyone else cleaned the supersize portions off their plate.

“Are you feeling all right, Caitlin?” Mariana asked as she was finishing up.

“What?” I asked, looking up. “Oh, yeah. I’m fine.”

“You’re not eating very much,” she persisted. I wasn’t sure if she was concerned about me or irritated because I was dissing her cooking abilities.

“I’m fine,” I said tightly.

Mariana didn’t look convinced. I stood up to clear my plate. As I was leaving the kitchen, I could hear Mariana speaking to Adrian.

“Why aren’t you taking care of her?”

“What do you want me to do?” he asked, sounding angry. “I watch her every day; what the hell more do you want? This isn’t my problem.”

“We understand that the burden of her safety rests heavily on you,” Mariana said in a reasonable tone, “and that it is the responsibility of us all to see that she remains safe, but it must be you that oversees her well-being. She looks sick, Adrian.”

“You’re blaming me for her
immune system
?”

I didn’t want to hear anymore, so I hurried upstairs and got another hour’s worth of work done on the dress. Literally falling asleep at the sewing machine, I finally called it a night and used the ridiculously deep bathtub to soak for another hour. I stumbled into my pajamas and collapsed into bed, falling asleep the instant my head hit the pillow.

When I opened my eyes, everything was white. I knew I had a body, but it was so bright I couldn’t see anything. The only other thing I knew for certain was that I was falling. There was absolutely no sound, like I was in space where sound didn’t exist, but I could feel the air rushing past my body, I could feel my hair whipping up behind me, could feel my eyes water as they were buffeted by the wind. And I continued, silently, to fall.

And fall.

And fall.

I woke up when I hit the ground.

When I opened my eyes, Adrian was sitting in a chair next to my bed. I looked at him, feeling as though my entire body were broken, like I actually
had
hit the ground from a great height. Every muscle was triple-tied into knots. Adrian’s eyes were glowing softly, providing the only light in the dark room.

Turning my back on him, I let the tears slide down my face, too tired to even cry properly.

But a moment later I felt the mattress next to me dip as Adrian sat on it. And then my hair was being brushed aside and he was rubbing my neck and it felt amazing. He didn’t say anything, just started on my shoulders, painfully working out the knots, and I kept crying because there wasn’t anything left to do but cry.

He worked a long time, making his slow and methodical way down my back until every point of tension was deliberately, painfully erased. When he was done, I felt like mush. He pulled back the covers and settled in next to me. Then I was being rolled over until I rested with my face against his shoulder and my arm tucked lifelessly against his chest. I fell asleep instantly.

17

IT COUNTS FOR TWO VOTES IF YOU SAY IT LIKE A PIRATE

“What’s the theme this year?” Meghan asked, popping a cheese puff in her mouth. We were all crammed into Trish’s room for an emergency dance-planning session.

“Winter Neverland,” Stephanie replied. Laura looked less than excited, but Neverland was right up Meghan’s alley.

“Hold the train,” Trish interrupted. “I know who I’m going with, and I know who Caitlin’s going with, but before anybody buys a dress, I need to know who everybody else is going with—that way I can approve purchases based on scandalicity.”

“I don’t suppose Mark will be back in time?” Meghan asked.

“Hell no.”

She sighed. “Too bad. Such a nice body.”

“Tim asked me,” Stephanie broke in.

We all turned to stare at her.

“Tim
Tim?” Laura asked at the same time Trish said, “Emo-Punk Emerson?”

Stephanie blushed, smiling. “Yeah.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa; are you two, like,
dating
?” Meghan demanded, forgetting Mark in the wake of juicy gossip.

Stephanie blushed even further. “Well, I don’t think so.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“He only asked me to the dance.”

“This explains so much!” Meghan said with a look of epiphany. “He just got a haircut, and I haven’t seen him dye his hair in a month!”

“He said he wanted it to be normal for the pictures,” Stephanie defended him, her cheeks a bright pink.

“Wow,” Meghan said in genuine awe. “He must, like, love you.”

“I don’t think—” Stephanie began, but Laura cut her off with, “Just because a boy lets his hair go back to its natural color doesn’t mean he’s in love. Maybe it was just getting too expensive to dye.”

“Or maybe he’s in love,” Meghan countered, and I could sense a battle on the horizon.

“Who’re you going with, Laura?” I asked.

She blinked at me. “Daniel.”

“
Kane?
” Meghan asked in pure disbelief.

Laura frowned. “Do you know another?”

“He’s a senior.”

“It’s not unheard of to go with someone outside your own grade.”

“Damn,” Meghan said, “pretty soon there’s gonna be no one left.” She paused with a cheese puff halfway to her mouth. “Who
is
left?”

“Andrew and Eric are taken,” Laura said, naming senior boys I didn’t know very well. “And Adrian, of course. I think Luke’s available.”

“He’s taken.”

We all looked at the corner where Jenny usually hid.

“You snagged Luke?” Jenny nodded and Meghan groaned. “Great;
now
who am I going to go with?”

“Jack’s available.”

Meghan looked thoughtful. “He’s not bad-looking.”

“Right,” Laura said. “Because that’s all that’s important.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“We’re all still going shopping this Saturday?” I piped up.

“Hells yeah.”

*   *   *

All day long the girls were talking about our impending shopping trip until I was sick of hearing the words
dance, dress,
and
date
. Adrian caught a whiff of our conversation at lunch and looked like the proverbial deer in the headlights.

He leaned over. “Do you want to go?”

I answered around a bite of peanut butter and jelly. “Well, since I’ve been working on a dress nonstop for two weeks, it might be a good idea to have something to wear it to.”

“Ah,” he replied, and cleared his throat. “Am I supposed to ask you officially, then?” I stared at him. He took that as confirmation. “Will you go with me to winter formal?”

I narrowed my eyes and looked thoughtful. “I was actually thinking of going with one of Trish’s brothers.”

I was teasing, of course, but for a moment, I could have sworn I saw Adrian’s eyes flash silver. Could have been a trick of the light, I suppose; the sun was actually out for once.

“Of course I’ll go with you,” I said quickly, and he relaxed.

He nodded and went back to his sandwich, which sucked away all my enthusiasm about the dance. At least I had a full night of sleep to look forward to—Trish and Adrian had coordinated another fake sleepover so I could crash at the mansion.

I grew out of my funk during choir when Trish spent the entire class playing Obscure Hangman with me on the back of an old math test. She said she and her brothers made it up one time when they were stuck in the car.

“‘Jellybeans must die’?” I whispered when I was down to one leg.

“Damn straight.”

And that’s why it was called Obscure Hangman.

I left with Trish after school got out. Adrian picked me up about a mile away from her house.

“What were you two giggling about during choir?” he asked when I got in.

“What? Oh, nothing. We were just playing Hangman.”

He looked at me, and I felt like a five-year-old. “What’s Hangman?”

I realized he hadn’t ever been a five-year-old. Well, at least not like everybody else had been a five-year-old.

“It’s a kid’s game,” I said, trying to explain. “You guess letters and try to figure out the phrase or sentence the other person has written down. Except in the obscure version, the phrase is … obscure. Like ‘please tickle my earlobe with yarn.’”

We blinked at each other.

“I’ll show you when we get to your place,” I said, giving up.

When we arrived, I felt, as usual, that the sign that read
PRIVATE PROPERTY
should instead read
ENTERING DE LA
MARA–LAND
, or
WELCOME TO A HOUSE THE SIZE OF A SMALL COUNTRY
, or even
THE ENTIRE
LORD OF THE RINGS
TRILOGY WAS FILMED IN OUR LIVING ROOM.

He parked and we headed inside.

“Time to connect with your inner child,” I said, dragging him into the library. We sat down on the couch near the humongous fireplace and I pulled out a sheet of paper and scribbled a stick-figure gallows, thought a moment, then underlined the spaces I wanted for my phrase. “All right, guess a letter.”

He looked at me. “Which one?”

I stared back. “Any one.”

“How do I know which one is right?” he asked seriously.

“You don’t,” I replied. “That’s the point of the game. If you guess wrong, I draw in a body part.”

“Excuse me?” He looked appalled.

“Just guess a letter.”

He looked down and contemplated the blank spaces on the paper.

“
E
,” he said finally, looking up. “It’s the most commonly used letter in the English language. I’m assuming this is in English?”

I stared at him in disgust. “You
would
know that. And yes, it is.” I bent down and filled in four
E
s. He looked entirely too pleased with himself.

“
A
,” he said.

I wrote in two
A
s.

“
O
.”

“Sorry, my friend.” I drew in a head at the end of the noose. “No
O
s.”

“What does that mean?” He pointed at the head.

“That means that you have a spine and four limbs to go before you lose.”

He stared at me. “This is a children’s game?”

I nodded. He shook his head. “I.”

“Two Is.”

He contemplated the paper. It read: _ _ i _ _ _ _ _ _ ea_ _e_ _ie_ _ea_ _.

He guessed a couple more letters, all correct, before saying, “
G
.”

“No
G
.” I added a spine to the hangman and wrote the letter
G
off to the side. Adrian narrowed his eyes, his competitive edge starting to come out.

He guessed a few more rounds, ending up with two spare limbs and the phrase “c _ i _ _ _ n _ s eat refried _eans.”

“What on earth?” he whispered under his breath. I grinned. “
U
,” he said finally, and I knew it would be a matter of seconds before he got it. He stared at it a moment longer, then looked up at me slowly. “‘Chipmunks eat refried beans’?”

I smiled, filled in the rest of the letters, and said, “Yay, you won.”

He stared at me in disbelief. “Those were the two least productive minutes of my entire life.”

“Yeah, well, it’s supposed to be fun.” I was already wishing I hadn’t shown him the game. He was spoiling everything lately.

“You guys played this for forty-five minutes?”

“We had some good phrases,” I said, feeling suddenly tired. “Trish started with ‘jellybeans must die’ and then I had ‘silver socks sing sadly’ and then she came up with ‘Polly Pocket picked Peter Piper’s peppers,’ and then I had ‘cliff-hanger kisses carabiner,’ and then she ended with ‘denim stole my soul’ because the bell rang. It kind of turned into Hangmen of Alliteration, but that’s okay.”

“Lady loves Lucian,” a voice said from somewhere behind me. Lucian slipped over the edge of the couch and slid beside me with a smile. I gave him a hug and said, “Yes, lady loves Lucian.” I sighed. “Unfortunately, lady also has homework that lady must do before shopping with other ladies tomorrow.”

“Should I go?” Lucian asked. I knew a few months ago he would’ve just sat there staring blankly. Slowly, he seemed to be adjusting and picking up on social cues. I was so proud of him.

“You can stay as long as you’re quiet,” I said. Then I looked up at Adrian. “That is, if your brother doesn’t mind.”

Adrian shrugged. “He can stay.”