Motion(Laws of Physics #1)(32)
Jaw dropping, my eyes grew to their maximum diameter.
Naked. Girl. In . . . bed?
“Are you serious?” I whispered, my mind darting in all directions, attempting to form a reasonable hypothesis for Lisa’s behavior and coming up completely empty. Suddenly, I couldn’t catch my breath.
He shook his head, giving me an astonished once-over. “You honestly don’t remember?”
My mouth opened and closed as I struggled to speak, but it was no use. I was too . . . I was too many things. Shocked. Confused. Incredulous. ANGRY.
LISA!
What had she been thinking? She’d been eighteen! How would she have liked waking up to find a strange, naked, eighteen-year-old boy in her bed?
I was beyond shocked. I was horrified. I was electrocuted by the reality of my sister’s brazen-slash-creepy quotient, because I couldn’t imagine doing anything in the same sphere of possibility. I was beginning to believe that if my twin and I were represented by a Venn diagram, our only areas of overlap would be physical. A minor sliver of shared corporal characteristics, and that was absolutely it.
“Lisa?”
Blinking at Abram, and promptly becoming tangled in his searching gaze, I realized he was still there. And I was still here. And my hands were still pressed against my cheeks as I warred with what I now identified as hot mortification.
What else could I do? I shot to my feet and marched out of the living room, dropping my hands and running up the main staircase.
She owed him an apology and . . . and . . . a voluntarily executed restraining order, a promise to stay one hundred meters away at all times. I clutched my forehead as I made it to the second floor, pausing only for a second when I registered the sound of his footsteps rushing up the stairs behind me. Sucking in a large breath, I jogged to my room—dammit!—and pivoted as soon as I realized the error, turning to Lisa’s room just as Abram crested the top stair.
“Hey, wait. Wait.” Abram stepped in front of Lisa’s door and held his hands out as though to catch me by the shoulders, but I rocked back before he could make contact. He looked bemused and amused.
“You think this is funny?” I asked, though it was really an accusation.
“I guess I do.” His gaze traveled over my face, and—like before—he was looking at me like I’d surprised him, delighted him, like I was something new.
I was too angry at Lisa to worry about what this look might mean. Did he suspect I was Mona? I didn’t think so, but I couldn’t be sure because I couldn’t concentrate. My attention was split between my disgust with my sister’s actions and trying to shake off all the damn noticing I was doing of Abram’s every damn mannerism.
Plus, his current obvious amusement did not help.
Gritting my teeth, I was having trouble holding his gaze but forced myself to do so anyway. “How can you think this is funny? I think it’s horrifying.”
Abram lifted an eyebrow. “You think it’s horrifying?”
It was a wonder he’d been so nice to me—to Lisa—up to now. No wonder he’d been so standoffish when we arrived. No wonder he’d looked at me with such hostility. If I’d been him, I would have refused Leo’s request. Abram is a saint! A SAINT!
And Gabby knew about it this whole time . . .
“You’re owed an apology.” Crossing my arms and lifting my chin a notch, I nodded my head. “On behalf of—on behalf of that Lisa, who did that to you, who behaved in an unforgivable way, I apologize.”
His eyes softened, the focus of their warmth shifting from inward amusement to outward . . . something else.
“You’re forgiven,” he said in a way that was a little breathless, dazed. His stare had turned hazy, velvet and hot. I felt the words and the weight of this new look straight to my heart, and now I was also breathless.
What is happening?
We passed a moment, staring at each other, where all I felt was confusion and chaos and a frenzied sort of all-directional momentum. Though I know it is theoretically impossible, which really just means improbable, time slowed until it merged with the physical plane, and I lived every infinite possibility that touched this second: leaving, staying, staring, kissing, shaking hands, touching, grabbing, high-fiving, walking backward to a bed—
But then Abram leaned closer, his attention dropping to my mouth. He blinked dazedly, and whispered, “Lisa.”
Lisa.
. . . LISA!
Her name was a vomit pie to the face and merged all the infinite possibilities into just one inescapable path forward.
The bizarre moment broken, I huffed a shaky laugh. Unable to maintain eye contact, I backed away. I didn’t believe in predestination, but Abram and I were predestined to be less than friends, hopefully not even acquaintances. For order to exist and be maintained in my universe, we must be absolutely nothing to each other.
“Don’t forgive me,” I said, my voice gravelly, surveying the space between Abram and my sister’s open door behind him, looking for a way into the room that wouldn’t bring our bodies into contact. Finding none, I turned for the stairs, calling over my shoulder, “In fact, do us both a favor: hold a grudge.”
*
I slept in my parents’ room, but not in their bed. Their bed was huge and huge beds had never held any allure for me. Since going to college, I’d been a nervous sleeper, waking up several times a night, tangling myself in my sheets. I never make my bed because it would be an inefficient use of time, and big beds with big sheets give me drowning dreams.