Lost Girls(21)

Apparently I wasn’t the only crazy alpha bitch in this school.

Feigning disinterest, I turned away from the Dragon Tattoo Girls and stared out the window instead, looking down at the cars that drove past the school. At the trio of pine trees that lined the front walk. At the cherry blossoms that had drifted onto the lawn and now collected in fragile, white clusters.

Most of the class continued to transcribe every word the teacher said.

Not me.

I was counting the minutes until I got out of school. Until I could go looking for the girls on that list.

...

The bell rang and part of me—the part I didn’t understand—wanted to follow those Dragon Tattoo Girls out the door, my fists clenched. Lunch was here. I knew I could easily corner one of those tramps, maybe lure her into the upstairs girls’ bathroom—nobody went up on the third floor during lunch—and there I’d have a chance to teach her a thing or two about classroom etiquette. Number one being don’t laugh at me. Number two, don’t act so tough because you really aren’t.

Number three evaporated, a morning mist driven away by the heat of the sun.

Dylan stood outside my classroom, waiting for me. Black leather jacket slung over one shoulder, a pair of broad gray wings spreading over his long-sleeved shirt, pensive gray eyes smudged with black liner. He looked like a dark angel, ready to take me somewhere I’d never been, and here I was, more than willing to go.

He gave a brief nod to the Dragon Tattoo Girls as they exited the room and they all nodded back. It was a clandestine greeting, almost a symbol of respect. But I could tell by the expression on Dylan’s face that he hated them almost as much as I did.

One more thing to add to my ever-growing WTF list.

Fortunately, it wasn’t enough to take away the excitement I felt now that he was here. Nothing could change that, not Agent Bennet, not the Dragon Girls, not Lauren. All the confusion in my life vanished whenever Dylan was around, although truthfully, he might have been the biggest mystery of all.

When, how, why had we become a couple?

He didn’t seem to wonder about it, though, didn’t seem to like me any less, even though I wasn’t the same girl he had been hanging out with for the past year. His mouth curved in a smile as I approached, his lip ring catching the fluorescent light and holding it like a star, poised on the edge of his mouth. His fingers laced with mine, as if our hands belonged together and always would, the warmth from his body flowing into mine, giving me strength. We walked toward the cafeteria united, shoulder to shoulder, two black-clad warriors pushing our way through the crowds and the other students moving aside. I hadn’t noticed until now how the other teens bowed away as we passed them, heads turned aside, eyes looking down.

I felt like I was Odette, the swan queen in Swan Lake, and Dylan was Prince Siegfried, my beloved, and the rest of the school was populated by people who had been turned into swans. It was a strange bit of fiction, but once I latched onto it, it settled in my mind and took root. I glanced at him from the corner of my eye—he was truly adorable, in a scary, breathless way, and I still couldn’t get over the fact that he was interested in me. That was what I got out of lunch period. I don’t remember what I ate or if I ate at all, I don’t remember if we sat with that strange group of kids or if we sat alone. All I remember is how he looked at me, with those big, gray eyes, his black hair wet and tousled from a PE shower, and how he smiled, as if he was sending me a coded message...wish we were alone, can’t wait to kiss you again, it’s been too long.

I had to agree with his unspoken words. It had been way too long. Like my whole life. As far as I was concerned, we’d never kissed before.

With every word he spoke, I found myself wondering what his mouth tasted like. Were his kisses soft and tender, or were they firm and passionate? Were they short and did they come in breathless clusters, or were they so long that they stole my heart?

We sat beside each other, knees touching, him leaning closer with each word—I think he was talking about his art class or something his coach said to the wrestling team, though I’m not sure. Words seemed to blur and become incomprehensible whenever he was around, which was strange because words meant so much to him. They were his DNA, the tools he used to understand life. The first line of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven flowed in a tattooed script, spiraling around his wrist, and he carried a leather-bound journal with him all the time, the tips of his fingers stained blue from jotting down snippets of text whenever he was alone.

At one point, I remembered that I had a question for him.

I fumbled awkwardly through my pockets, finding and retrieving that note I’d discovered attached to my memorial, the one I thought he might have written. I slid it on the table between us. “Did you write this?” I asked.

He glanced down at it, then nodded.

“I can’t read what it says.”

“I hung it up before the rains started.” His hand found mine beneath the table and his fingers brushed my palm, sending tingles up my arm. “Then the rains came and the water washed away my words—but, even though no one could read it, the poem did what it was supposed to do. It brought you back.”

I sighed, my heart melting.

“I have—uh—some stuff I need to do tonight,” he said. “But I was wondering if you might want to hang out Friday night.”

Friday was tomorrow. So close and yet so far away. I didn’t know if this was a real date or if we were supposed to hook up with a gang of kids somewhere. I paused, speechless, not sure what to say.