Beautiful Creatures(40)

“So, do you want to, you know, hang out?” I tried to sound casual.

“Isn’t that what we’re doing?”

I chewed on the end of an old plastic spoon I had found in my backpack, probably from a pudding cup.

“Yeah. No. I mean, do you want to, I don’t know, go somewhere?”

“Now?” She took a bite out of an open granola bar, and swung her legs around so she was next to me, holding it out toward me. I shook my head.

“Not now. Friday, or something. We could see a movie.” I stuck the spoon in my chemistry book, closing it.

“That’s gross.” She made a face, and turned the page.

“What do you mean?” I could feel my face turning red.

I was only talking about a movie.

You idiot.

She pointed at my dirty spoon bookmark. “I meant that.”

I smiled, relieved. “Yeah. Bad habit I picked up from my mom.”

“She had a thing for cutlery?”

“No, books. She would have maybe twenty going at a time, lying all over our house—on the kitchen table, by her bed, the bathroom, our car, her bags, a little stack at the edge of each stair. And she’d use anything she could find for a bookmark. My missing sock, an apple core, her reading glasses, another book, a fork.”

“A dirty old spoon?”

“Exactly.”

“Bet that drove Amma crazy.”

“It drove her nuts. No, wait for it—she was—” I dug deep. “P. E. R. T. U. R. B. E. D.”

“Nine down?” She laughed.

“Probably.”

“This was my mom’s.” She held out one of the charms suspended from the long silver chain she never seemed to take off. It was a tiny gold bird. “It’s a raven.”

“For Ravenwood?”

“No. Ravens are the most powerful birds in the Caster world. Legend has it that they can draw energy into themselves and release it in other forms. Sometimes they’re even feared because of their power.” I watched as she let go of the raven and it fell back into place between a disc with strange writing etched into it and a black glass bead.

“You’ve got a lot of charms.”

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and looked down at the necklace. “They aren’t really charms, just things that mean something to me.” She held out the tab of the soda can. “This is from the first can of orange soda I ever drank, sitting on the porch of our house in Savannah. My gramma bought it for me when I came home from school crying because no one put anything in my valentine shoebox at school.”

“That’s cute.”

“If by cute you mean tragic.”

“I mean, that you kept it.”

“I keep everything.”

“What’s this one?” I pointed to the black bead.

“My Aunt Twyla gave it to me. They’re made from these rocks in a really remote area of Barbados. She said it would bring me luck.”

“It’s a cool necklace.” I could see how much it meant to her, the way she held each thing on it so carefully.

“I know it just looks like a bunch of junk. But I’ve never lived anywhere very long. I’ve never had the same house, or the same room for more than a few years, and sometimes I feel like the little pieces of me on this chain are all I have.”

I sighed and pulled a blade of grass. “Wish I’d lived in one of those places.”

“But you have roots here. A best friend you’ve had your whole life, a house with a bedroom that’s always been yours. You probably even have one of those doorjambs with your height written on it.” I did.

You do, don’t you?

I nudged her with my shoulder. “I can measure you on my doorjamb if you want. You can be immortalized for all time at Wate’s Landing.” She smiled into her notebook and pushed her shoulder against mine. From the corner of my eye, I could see the afternoon sunlight hitting one side of her face, a single page of her notebook, the curling edge of her black hair, the tip of one black Converse.

About the movies. Friday works.

Then she slid her granola bar into the middle of her notebook, and closed it.

The toes of our ratty black sneakers touched.

The more I thought about Friday night, the more nervous I got. It wasn’t a date, not officially—I knew that. But that was part of the problem. I wanted it to be. What do you do when you realize you might have feelings for a girl who will barely admit to being your friend? A girl whose uncle kicked you out of their house, and who isn’t all that welcome in yours, either? A girl who almost everyone you know hates? A girl who shares your dreams, but maybe not your feelings?

I had no idea, which is why I didn’t do anything. But it didn’t stop me from thinking about Lena, and almost driving by her house on Thursday night—if her house wasn’t outside of town, if I had my own car. If her uncle wasn’t Macon Ravenwood. Those were the “ifs” that kept me from making a fool of myself.

Every day was like a day out of someone else’s life. Nothing had ever happened to me, and now everything was happening to me—and by everything, I really meant Lena. An hour was both faster and slower. I felt like I had sucked the air out of a giant balloon, like my brain wasn’t getting enough oxygen. Clouds were more interesting, the lunchroom less disgusting, music sounded better, the same old jokes were funnier, and Jackson went from being a clump of grayish-green industrial buildings to a map of times and places where I might run into her. I found myself smiling for no reason, keeping my earphones in and replaying our conversations in my head, just so I could listen to them again. I had seen this kind of thing before.