Under Rose-Tainted Skies(34)

Luke . . .

And that’s about as good as it gets for almost five hours.

I lie on my bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to balance Luke’s phone number on the tip of my nose. Every time I exhale, it floats away, and turns trying to catch it into a game.

‘Knock, knock.’ Mom pops her head around my door and I snatch the piece of paper out of sight. Mostly because I’m embarrassed by the meal I’m making out of this. ‘I think I’m going to call it a night,’ she says. ‘I can’t wait to be in my own bed.’ She’s all kinds of dreamy, imagining her fluffy duvet and soft sheets as she says this.

‘It’s good to have you back.’ I mean it. Listening to her potter around downstairs has been music to my ears. ‘Goodnight.’

She looks at me, uncertain for a second, and then her bloodshot eyes spot my phone on the floor. It slipped off the bed about an hour ago, and I’ve yet to pick it up, a what’s-the-point attitude oozing out of my pores.

‘Uh-oh.’ Mom steps into my room. ‘Did he not text back?’

‘No.’ I sit up, clear my throat, and braid my fingers together. ‘But then, he has nothing to text back to. I didn’t send anything yet.’

‘I see,’ Mom replies. She scoops up my phone and perches on the bed. The faint scent of industrial-strength disinfectant and antiseptic still clings to her clothes.

‘TV didn’t adequately prepare me for talking to boys in real life.’

‘Is there maybe something I should have done?’ Mom winces.

‘No!’ I exclaim. ‘Not at all.’ What’s she supposed to do? Tag on some boy advice after she’s done convincing me there isn’t about to be an apocalypse? Talk me through dating etiquette once she’s finished assuring me I won’t choke on my food? ‘You’ve done everything.’

Also, let’s be honest, two weeks ago, the likelihood of me ever talking to another human being beyond her, Dr Reeves, and the staff over at Helping Hands was slim to none. At least for the foreseeable future. Two weeks ago there was still an infinite amount of time to talk to me about boys.

‘Maybe I can help now. What are you thinking?’

My face crumples and I give her that look, the one that says Have you got a spare sixty years while I take you through the list?

‘Right,’ she replies, reading my mind. ‘So what’s your biggest fear?’

‘I have two.’

‘Hit me.’

I count them out with my fingers. ‘I don’t know when the right time to text is. Like, I’m thinking today is too soon?’

‘Not at all. Did you not see the size of that boy’s grin as he left? Any time would be a good time.’ When she smiles her nose scrunches. I like the way her long-since-dead Southern accent wakes up when she says ‘boy’.

‘You lie.’

‘Hand to God. That boy wants you to text him as soon as poss, I guarantee it.’

‘Huh.’ My eyes go glassy and I get lost in thoughts of Luke and his smile, his eyes, his arms, the way his shirt grabs his body. Click. Mom snaps her fingers in front of my face.

‘You need me to get you a cold compress to go with that swoon?’

‘Ha ha.’ But in all seriousness, that might not be a bad idea. It’s hot in here; I have to shed my sweater.

‘You were saying?’

‘Right, the second thing . . . I’m afraid of saying the wrong thing.’

She starts chuckling. Not quite the reaction I was hoping for. ‘Hey. Why are you laughing?’ I give her a slight nudge with my shoulder. ‘This is serious.’

‘Ahh, baby,’ she says, running her palm down my cheek and giving it a slight pinch. ‘You realize what this is?’

‘Horrible?’

‘Perfectly normal,’ she says, wrapping normal in air quotes. That’s a thing we do a lot around here. Both her and Dr Reeves are forever exercising their fingers to defuse the definition. ‘There’s not a person in the world at your age who doesn’t worry about this stuff. Bad news? There is no one answer. You just have to be yourself and do what you think is best.’ She kisses my forehead and stands to leave.

‘That’s it?’ Normally her advice is more helpful, more . . . more.

‘That’s it.’ She shrugs, and her palms slap down against her thighs. ‘You’ll figure it out. Have fun. Be yourself. That’s all you need.’ Her tone is teasing. I’m surprised she doesn’t slip in a wink before she disappears down the hall.

‘Ugh!’ I exclaim, feigning an aneurysm and falling back on my bed.

Why do people keep telling me to be myself? Honestly. It’s like they’ve never even met me.



Hi :)

That’s it. After a millennium, an ice age, a fricking era of dissecting dialogue, that’s the grand conversation starter I settle on. I hit send and a fizzing current zips through my veins, making my body buzz. Excitement is electric. It reminds me of this one Halloween night, for ever ago, when me and a couple of kids from school dared one another to knock on the door of the abandoned house beside Bennick Marsh. Legend had it a witch lived there.

My phone bleeps to tell me the message has been sent, and without thinking, I throw my cell to the end of the bed. I don’t know, maybe my subconscious was going for out of sight, out of mind. It doesn’t matter; I retrieve it a half second later because it feels like a galaxy too far away.