Through Glass(8)

You would think that being an only child for four years, only to have four younger siblings—all boys followed in rapid succession—would have made me resentful of noise. Yet, it didn’t. I loved the rough housing and the screaming and the broken bones. Mostly because they didn’t involve me and therefore, I very rarely got in trouble. I simply felt bad for my mother. She constantly walked around with that tired slash I’m-stuck-in-a-mental-institution look on her face.

“Ah, I remember this.” I froze at his voice; I had somehow missed him coming right up behind me over the sounds of a land war occurring in my living room.

“Cohen!” I screeched in surprise, turning to face him. “You scared me.”

“Sorry.” He smiled and I became keenly aware that this was the closest I had been to him since he had gotten home. He looked so much older without the ten foot gap. “Your mom just kind of opened the door and went back to yelling.”

“Welcome back to the Lucha Libre,” I said, trying my best at a Hispanic accent and knowing I was failing.

It must have been really bad because Cohen didn’t even laugh; he only rolled his eyes at me.

“I guess I should have gotten them brightly colored masks for Christmas.”

“And mouth guards, definitely mouth guards.”

Cohen smoothly slid onto the bar stool next to mine and pulled one of the invitations toward him, his eyes scanning over the ridiculous, mostly illegible font my school had chosen. I watched his eyes move, waiting for my mind to click back into place and decide to actually say something that could pass as logical when his eyes stopped scanning, widening a bit, and the corner of his mouth pulled up.

Oh no.

I had read the invitations once, not really caring what they had said, and hadn’t thought anything of them since. Not until Cohen walked into my kitchen, picked one up and discovered what the next year had planned for me. I could tell by the way his eyes looked up at me from over the cardstock that he knew exactly what my intentions were, too.

“University of Cincinnati,” he said softly.

Everything inside of me shuddered.

So much for subtlety. I guess it’s good that I never got my they-have-a-good-economics-department speech figured out.

“Hey, Alexis,” my mom said from behind me, her voice more haggard than usual, “I’m taking the boys to the skate park. We will be back soon.”

“‘Kay, Mom.” I didn’t even look at her; my eyes were unwilling to tear themselves away from the dark eyes that were keeping me captive.

I sat still as the screaming left, as the click of the door echoed through the now silent house, the loud snap of the lock cueing me back into the conversation.

“Cohen, I…” I started, hoping to explain before the idea of my following him around firmly cemented in his mind, but it was too late. He had placed the invitation back on the counter and was looking at me a little more intently than I was comfortable with. My words were lost after only two had found their way out.

“I thought you didn’t know where you were going?”

“I lied.”

“I can see that.” He smiled and I felt the tense muscles in my neck relax. If that smile was any indication, he really didn’t care. In fact I would almost say he was happy about it. What happened to “not jeopardizing our friendship”?

I smiled in the most sheepish way I could muster, knowing I was failing at keeping the tomato red blush off my face. It wasn’t going to work, however, so I quickly chose to give up and look toward the stack of envelopes I had been working on only a moment before.

“Is that okay?” I mumbled, not even sure if my words were audible through the embarrassment that had somehow affected my speech patterns.

“Of course it’s okay.” His voice was soft in my ear and I fought a shiver that wanted to snake down my spine.

“I mean, it’s not like I didn’t want to stay close to home… I mean, I’m not following you to school or anything…” I spouted the first thing that came to mind haphazardly and regretted it instantly. Did I really just say that? Lame. Lame. Lame. I tried not to cringe as the words left my mouth, but I am not sure it worked.

Cohen chuckled beside me and I turned my eyes stoically away from him, fully aware I had hit tomato status in record time. I wish I could give him some snarky quip to replace the train wreck that had just occurred, but nothing was coming. Any other girl would have run away in stress and confusion, but I just sat there, looking like a sunburned strawberry.

When I looked toward him again, he only smiled, his hand reaching up to grab mine from off my lap, restraining it on the counter with my wrist facing up. I tried to pull it away, but he only smiled wickedly at me with a look I had never seen before—it was the look he gave his paintings when he was studying them, deciding what to do next.

He had never looked at me this way. The intensity of the gaze froze me. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t look away from the penetrating stare he had fixed me with. My body was heating the longer I looked at him. His eyes drank me in, as if he could see and feel and know everything about me. The thought warmed me further, my nerves prickling across my skin at the very thought. I listened to my heart beat in my ears; I felt the heavy pulse against my ribcage. It was all I could hear, all I could feel.

“Tell me a secret, Lex,” he whispered as he moved his charcoal stained fingertips up to trace the soft skin on the inside of my right wrist.