Beautiful Darkness(38)

Liv looked at me, pretending to be surprised. “You didn't? I find that rather tragic.” She laughed and linked her arms through ours. “Come on, boys. Explain to me exactly how it is you make this strange cotton into candy.”

“I can't give away national secrets, ma'am.”

“I can.” Link squeezed her arm with his.

“Tell me everything.”

“Tunnel of Love or the Kissing Booth?” Link grinned even wider.

Liv tilted her head. “Hmm. That's a tough one. I'm going to go with … the Ferris Wheel.”

That's when I caught sight of the familiar black hair and the scent of lemons and rosemary in the breeze.

Nothing else was familiar. Lena was a few yards away, standing behind the ticket booth in what had to be Ridley's clothes. Her black tank rode up on her stomach, and her black skirt was about five inches too short. There was a long streak of blue in her hair, twisting down from where it parted around her face, and down her back. But that wasn't what shocked me most. Lena, the girl who never put anything on her face but sunscreen, was covered in makeup. Some guys liked girls with crap all over their faces, but I wasn't one of them. Lena's black-rimmed eyes were especially disturbing.

Surrounded by cutoff denim and dust and straw and sweat and red and white plastic checkered tablecloths, she looked even more out of place. Her old boots were the only thing I recognized. And her charm necklace, dangling like a lifeline back to the real Lena. She wasn't the kind of girl who wore stuff like that. At least, she didn't used to be.

The lowlifes were checking her out, three guys deep. I had to resist the urge to punch all of them in the face.

I dropped Liv's arm. “I'll meet you guys over there.”

Link couldn't believe his luck. “No problem, man.”

“We can wait,” Liv offered.

“Don't worry about it. I'll catch up with you.” I hadn't expected to see Lena here, and I didn't know what to say without sounding even more whipped than Link already thought I was. As if there's something you can say to sound cool after your girlfriend takes off with another guy.

“Ethan, I've been looking for you.” Lena walked toward me, and she sounded like herself, her old self — the Lena I remembered from a few months ago. The one I was desperately in love with, the one who loved me back. Even if she looked like Ridley. She stood on her tiptoes to push my hair out of my face, her fingers dragging slowly down my jawline.

“That's funny, because the last time I saw you, you were ditching me.” I tried to sound casual, but I just sounded angry.

“I wasn't ditching you, exactly.” She was defensive.

“No, you were throwing trees at me and jumping on the back of a bike with some other guy.”

“I wasn't throwing trees.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

She shrugged. “More like branches.”

But I could tell I had gotten to her. She twisted the tiny paper-clip star I had given her, until I thought it was going to snap off of her necklace. “I'm sorry, Ethan. I don't know what's going on with me.” Her voice was soft, honest. “Sometimes I feel like everything is closing in, and I can't take it. I wasn't ditching you at the lake. I was ditching me.”

“You sure about that?”

She looked back up at me, a tear sliding down her cheek. She wiped it away, her fingers balled in frustration. She opened her fist and put her hand on my chest, resting it over my heart.

It's not you. I love you.

“I love you.” She said it out loud this time and the words hung in the air between us, so much more public than when we Kelted. My chest tightened when she said it, and my breath caught in my throat. I tried to think of something sarcastic to say, but I couldn't think about anything except how beautiful she was and how much I loved her, too.

But I wasn't letting her off that easy this time. I broke the truce. “What's going on, L? If you love me so much, what's the deal with John Breed?”

She looked away without saying a word.

Answer me.

“It's not like that, Ethan. John's just a friend of Ridley's. There's nothing going on between us.”

“How long has nothing been going on? Since you took that picture of him in the graveyard?”

“It wasn't a picture of him. It was his bike. I was meeting Ridley, and he happened to be there.” I noticed she ignored the question.

“Since when have you been hanging out with Ridley? Did you forget the part where she separated us so your mother could get you alone and try to convince you to go over to the Dark side? Or when Ridley almost killed my father?”

Lena pulled her arm away from me, and I could feel her withdrawing again, moving back into that place I couldn't reach. “Ridley warned me you wouldn't understand. You're a Mortal. You don't know anything about me, not the real me. That's why I didn't tell you.” I felt a sudden breeze as the storm clouds rolled in like a warning.

“How do you know whether I would understand or not? You haven't told me anything. Maybe if you gave me the chance instead of sneaking around behind my back —”

“What do you want me to tell you? That I have no idea what's going on with me? That something's changing, something I don't understand? That I feel like a freak, and Ridley's the only one who can help me figure it out?”