Day 365: An overused title
Oct. 11th, 2006 11:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nagi_schwarzSo...making another bid at the Kolob Canyon Review. Mostly to help out a coworker. I fixed it up and revised it from last fall. Am now open for comments, criticisms, et cetera. I need all the help I can get.
Here goes.
Five Scenes From a Relationship That Never Happened
She sees him only once in a while even though they live in the same building, but she doesn’t mind. She has long accepted that conventional relationships aren’t available to her and is content to just watch and admire that which is aesthetically pleasing. On the way to the bookstore to buy a text for a class she sees him sitting at a table alone. He’s eating slowly and staring at nothing, lost in his own thoughts. A strange fire sears behind her eyes, and she has to pause to let the vision play out.
“Hey, Chris.”
He blinks and almost drops a French fry. “Hi.” He fumbles for her name and she feels a flash of embarrassment. “Tess.” He always waves at her, but that obviously doesn’t mean anything.
She shifts her books against her hip and says, “How have you been?”
His wide-lipped smirk comes slowly, and with his wickedly-tilted green eyes he looks remarkably like the cat who’s had the cream. “I’ve been fine. Just been having late nights lately. You know what I mean.”
She does know – she’s seen him sitting out on the grass smoking his weird European cigarettes, and seen him dashing out to a friend’s car with a case of beer tucked under one arm.
He startles her by saying, “How about you?”
“Oh. The usual.” She hefts her pile of books. “Gotta go buy another textbook for that one killer theory class.”
Disinterest begins to glaze over his eyes, and she remembers that he’s not as focused on his schoolwork as she is on hers. It’s a pity, because he’s a smart boy. Light flares back to life in those eyes when she plops down opposite him abruptly.
“Anyway, Christian, I came here because I have a proposal for you.”
His eyebrows go up but his smirk stays the same; by now she knows that he is actually curious. “A proposal?”
“What I’m about to suggest isn’t quite dirty enough to be called a proposition,” she says, and is pleased when he sits back, studying her, intrigued.
“I’m listening.”
She tosses her head and sits up straight, looking more confident than she feels. “It goes like this: you have no girlfriend and wish to rid yourself of the juvenile admirers who run around campus. I haven’t had a relationship since Zeus knows when and it’s getting old. You aren’t the type for commitment and my classes don’t allow me much time to commit, so I offer a very low-maintenance relationship. If you want any sort of human comfort or casual company for one of your late nights, you know where to find me.”
He drums his long fingers on one knee for a moment. “That’s it?” he asks when she adds no more. “What’s in it for you?”
She scoops up her bag and rises calmly to her feet. “The simple pleasure of your company.” She walks away, leaving him surprised. The ball is in his court now. Let him think it over.
The headache fades and the sharp images are pushed aside. She considers going over to speak to him, but shakes her head and continues on her way to the store. He’ll be there when she passes back that way. If he’s not, it’s not the end of the world. She has always been pragmatic that way.
She spots him lounging on the grass outside the dorms, enjoying one of his strange cigarettes and debating the finer points of the falling of the Berlin Wall with a random associate. His long limbs are splayed casually, and he looks like a languid tiger basking in the sun. His long fiery hair is tied back with a yellow bandanna, and his mouth is pretty when he laughs. He calls out to her as she passes, asks what her night’s plans are in way of a greeting. A flash of satori burns through her mind before she can rouse herself to answer through the onslaught of images.
“Hello again, Tess.” A grey haze of smoke clouds his face like an unholy halo.
She pauses and just looks at him; he looks at her right back. “Christian. Good to see you again. Or do you prefer to be called Chris?”
“Chris is fine,” he says, and ashes his cigarette. His other friends watch her closely, and she wonders if this is what a gazelle feels like before lions strike for the kill. At least they stay silent, smoking their cigarettes and pretending indifference to her presence.
“Christian is too formal. I'm not a Christian,” he says, and his friends chuckle. She steps back when he pushes himself to his feet. She’s always known how lean he his but never realized how tall he is because he walks with a perpetual insouciant slouch. Now it seems as if he towers over her.
He smiles at her, cigarette dangling near his hip, and says, “I know you have homework tonight, because you always do, but I’ve considered your proposal, and our late nights begin long after you’ve finished studying. Fancy a spin?”
She says, “I’ll think about that spin part,” or at least tries, because suddenly she’s being kissed. Whoever says kissing a smoker is like kissing an ashtray has never kissed someone who smokes cloves. His mouth is warm and spicy and he catches her chin in his hand, leaning in to kiss her slowly, aggressively, and very thoroughly. When he pulls back his friends are smirking. Some are outright laughing, and she knows she must look very owlish, wide-eyed and surprised. He nods to his friends and they begin to drift slowly toward the doors to go inside.
“Think about that spin part.” He smirks, and then in a sudden gesture of tenderness reaches out to brush a strand of hair out of her face, cigarette dangerously close to her skin. He spins on his heel, grinds the cigarette out with the toe of his boot and heads inside, leaving the smell of smoke and cloves to swirl around her. When her friends catch up to her and ask what’s wrong, she realizes he’s one up on her again, that the ball is still in her court. He’s smarter than he acts.
The pain in her head subsides and she pauses to watch him. His green eyes are hidden behind dark sunglasses and she cannot read him now, not that she ever could before, and she wonders if he’s aware of the way her eyes follow him whenever he enters the room. She gives him the standard reply that she will be holed up in her room studying, but it’s not entirely true. She has extra work to do - wet work - and never enough time in which to do it. She continues on to her room and wonders when she’ll see him next – after all, he’s so hard to catch.
Sometimes she sits out on the grass to read in the sun. Somewhere she heard that it’s better to study in natural light. She sees other students try the same thing and laughs quietly to herself when they screech as their homework blows away. Most of her classes cover theoretical and abstract material and all she has to do is read, so she can sit out on the grass with a book and relax a little. If she relaxes too much the words on the page become a blur and she can’t understand them anymore, so she contents herself with the warmth of the sun and wishes that Jacques Derrida is more straightforward about anything and everything he writes. Some boys from Chris’s floor come stumbling by, laughing and sounding a little too drunk for how early in the day it is. She checks her watch and remembers that she’s already had supper. This is the tail end of summer and the sun still sets late in the evening; it’s not so early after all.
“Man, Mike is totally wasted. Wanna get Chris?” one of them says, and his friend snickers.
“Yeah. Get him. Let's split. Meet behind the high school.”
Tess wants to call out a warning, but by now she expects the pain and lets the strange pictures wash over her.
Mike, Lena, Dave and Tim are totally wasted and giggling manically. Lena and Dave are curled around each other and Tess is glad that they’re in the shadows because she can’t see Dave’s hands and she would rather not. Mike and Tim are fighting over the last can of beer, but Chris is sprawled next to her on the hard cement, smoking and gazing at the sunset.
“I told you we wouldn’t mind if you hid in the corner and studied,” he says.
She shrugs and slides her textbook back into her bag. “You’re pretty easy-going. I just wasn’t sure about them.” She nods at Mike and Tim who are now playing tug-o-war with the can and wonders if they can get any more juvenile.
“Ignore them,” Chris says, and kisses her.
She could really get used to his kisses but knows that she probably shouldn’t. He winds an arm around her waist and pulls her closer, and she doesn’t care if the others are watching. His hands are warm and his mouth is soft and she really should stop trying to think because she can’t do it anymore. A flash of fire sears across her forehead. Chris seems to sense her discomfort and pulls back, smoothing a hand over her hair gently like he did before, cigarette dangerously close to her skin.
“Are you all right?”
Red and blue lights dance behind her eyelids. She says, “We should get out of here. The cops are coming.” She scoops up Lena’s keys. “I’m the only one sober enough to drive.”
Chris is surprised at the seriousness of her tone but he nods and stands up. “Hey guys, we’re going.”
Lena and Dave take a moment to peel themselves apart, but then Lena starts cleaning up the beer cans. Tess sees how disheveled Lena is and lifts a hand to smooth down her own shirt, wondering if she looks the same way. Chris catches her by the elbow and steers her gently toward Lena’s car. He shepherds the rest of his friends in and makes sure they’re wearing seatbelts before he slides into the front seat beside Tess. As they pull out of the parking lot a police cruiser passes by. Its lights aren’t flashing and the officers inside look nonchalant enough. Tess smiles brightly and lifts a hand to wave, and the cruiser speeds up and pulls away.
Chris casts her a curious look out of the corner of his eye. Then he smirks, though the expression is less derisive and more fond, and says, “I guess you’re some sort of lucky charm.”
She shakes her head clear of the fire and images and goes back to her reading. She hates alcohol because she hates not being in control of her reflexes and senses. She is something of a control freak, even her friends will admit that, but she has to be if she wants to do her job and keep her life.
Chris strolls out of the doors five minutes later. He never seems to move at more than a casual stroll, but his long legs carry him quickly. He grins at her and lights up a cigarette.
“Hey Tess, you want to come out with us tonight?” He asks occasionally, but her answer is always the same.
“I don’t drink; I just study.”
He shrugs, because nothing fazes him, and heads to the car with his two friends in tow. She watches him go and wonders if tonight the cops will finally catch on.
Whenever she hears sirens rise in the night or students muttering about the drinking age being too high she wonders how it is that Christian hasn’t been caught yet, but she says nothing of it to him and goes on with her work. She has even more wet work to do and more often than not it causes a headache. Her friends gather in her room. They all study together even though none of them share a major; it’s easier to study if they can take a break every once in a while and chat. Tess is much less likely to start snoring over her criminal law book if someone is there to keep an eye on her. Late at night when they’re all asleep in their beds her real work begins, but they don’t need to know about that; they don’t need to know any of it. At least for them Tiresias is still a blind old man who pissed off the gods. For her, Tiresias is a young, solemn man in a pristine white suit who tells her who's going to die, and whether or not she'll facilitate the dying. Tess frowns at the facilitate coming on and braces herself for the tidal wave of sight and sound.
Someone knocks at the door. That isn’t the approved signal for friends who wish to gain entrance to the Study Lair. Tess frowns but calls out,
“Enter.”
The door swings open, and the others lift their heads. Chris stands in the doorway with books tucked under one arm.
“Hey. Thought I’d come join the study group.” He is careless of the way Steve and the others stare at him as he picks his way across the room and has the audacity to sit on the bed beside Tess. He cracks open his physics book and sets about reading. Steve raises his eyebrows at Tess, but she just shrugs and goes back to her reading. One by one the others do the same, and they all fall into a comfortable silence, although someone sneaks a curious glance at Chris every now and again. Tess can feel his warmth against her side and wonders if the others notice how close he’s sitting, or the way his elbow brushes hers as he turns a page. She sighs and leans into him slightly, enjoying the solidarity that comes with the warmth. Chris says nothing, merely keeps reading, and she smiles to herself, glad that he allows the contact. It seems that he needs human comfort at least as much as she does. A flash of fire sears across her forehead and she winces.
Steve looks up and asks, “Another migraine?”
That’s what they think the headaches are, simple migraines, but Tess knows better. Blind Tiresias has a job for her tonight, and he had to use a painful way of getting the message across. As the pain fades she hears the others whispering and sees that they’re gathering up their books.
“We’ll leave you be till the headache goes away,” Molly says.
Jenna pauses in the doorway and adds, “See you at dinner.”
Steve closes the door quietly after them. Tess can still feel Chris sitting beside her, but he’s not reading anymore – she can feel him looking at her.
“You get migraines?” he asks.
“From pressure changes in the weather,” she lies, because he is but a casual acquaintance and not even her closest friends know the truth.
He sets aside his book and raises one warm hand to the back of her neck, beginning to massage lightly. “Does this help?”
Tess nods, and this time it’s not a lie, so she curls against him and lets the sensations roll through her.
Her eyes are falling closed and she’s feeling more relaxed and then his mouth is on hers, soft but insistent and spicy like cloves. She can feel his heartbeat under one hand and his shirt is worn and fuzzy and warm from his body. He keeps one hand on the back of her neck, cradling her close, but the other arm around her waist holds her tightly.
She’s glad that the others decided to leave and wonders if he had anything to do with it.
When he pulls back he whispers, “This feels a little more than casual, doesn’t it?”
She’s afraid he’s right, but for the first time fear feels good.
Someone knocking on the door jerks her out of her reverie. That isn’t the approved signal for friends who wish to gain entrance to the Study Lair. Tess grants the person entrance anyway, and the five of them exchange exasperated looks. None of them like Kevin, but their subtle refusal of his company seems to have gone unnoticed. He hefts a textbook and grins.
“Hey, I’m here to study!”
There’s a bit of grumbling and shuffling as they make room for him on the furniture – two fit on the couch, two fit on the bed, and there are two chairs but Steve likes to sit on the floor. Tess nods; one of the girls rolls her eyes and pushes the door shut. Kevin attempts to talk, but the others resume their homework. He takes it in stride and opens his textbook, pretending to study.
Tess is thinking about going to the rave tonight and notices a dark-haired girl hanging off of Chris’s arm and wearing his long, dark green coat. Steve says she isn’t Chris's girlfriend. Molly notes rather disdainfully that it’s probably this week’s floozy. Tess agrees and goes back to her work. Chris is fun to look at, to observe. His sharp green eyes miss nothing and his hands, one ever adorned with a cigarette, are languid and expressive. He is tall and careless and confident and fills the space around him with raw, magnetic power. Tess knows she isn’t the only one to have noticed him; girls from the high school prowl around campus to get a good look at him as well. Tess knows that a boy like Christian would be no help to her or her cause, the cause of blind Tiresias and his damning promises. Jenna asks if Tess is going to the rave tonight and then comments rather slyly that perhaps Chris will be there. Molly frowns and comments that whether or not Chris goes, Kevin will be there and Tess shouldn’t go alone to such a place where she’ll have no back-up when Kevin decides to bother her. The world around her swims away as fire swirls around her mind.
Chris hates techno music, and he hates dancing even more, but it must be more than casual if he agrees to come. He stands on the edges of the dancefloor with one of his cigarettes, green eyes focused on her while she dances. He smirks every now and again, and she is bold enough to wink back. She feels a strange mix of powerful and powerless under his gaze, powerful because he can’t look away from her while she winds her body to the music, powerless because she cannot escape him. He seems to be enjoying the show well enough, but then the lights go down and Tess has to do what she must. She regrets that it has to be during her favorite song, Moonlight Shadow, but she has a job. When the lights go down and the rave lights go up is the best time for it. She can’t see Chris anymore; he ought to be all right on the edges of the dancefloor. He trusts her enough to take care of herself that he won’t come wading through the crowd for her. He hates crowds enough as well. She finds her target easily; the job will be over in an instant - and then the screaming starts. People press in on all sides and she’s forced with them. She fights back and eventually breaks through, and then she sees it. Amidst the flashing lights – why is Chris on the dancefloor? -she recognizes Kevin a moment too late, and then it’s like one of those old cartoons where the frames run too infrequently. She can see his finger squeeze the trigger six times as if in slow motion. The music is too loud for her to hear the gunshots, but Chris falls slowly and is on the ground by the time Tess reaches his side. He’s not moving. His eyes are open and surprised but quickly clouding over. It must be more than casual because Tess is on her feet, powerless and powerful all in one instant. Christian isn’t coming back and there’s nothing she can do, no way the warm wet sensation of blood on her hands will go away. The surprise on Kevin’s face is worth it when she breaks his arm in three places at once, forcing him to drop the gun, and then she has a knife at his throat, ready to make him pay for what he’s done. The target is gone and the job is botched, but Tess is still ready to fight. By the time the police arrive Chris’s body is cold and Kevin is out cold from shock. Tess doesn’t dare look back, but then she’s supposed to always look forward.
Next to them, Mike asks Tim if anyone thinks Chris will go, and Tess comes back to her senses with a painful jolt.
Tim shakes his head. “Naw, Chris wouldn’t do that sort of thing. Rave’s not his scene.”
“Not even for…her?” Mike can’t remember anyone’s name, not even his own on some days.
“Not for the girl-thing.” Tim says ‘girl-thing’ because the girl isn’t his girlfriend after all. “If she were more important to him maybe she could beg him into going, but Chris doesn’t go where he doesn’t want to go.”
Tess tosses the others a knowing look and hunches a little lower over her mythology book. Tiresias says only one man is dying tonight, and Tess, putting on her Cassandra mask, agrees. She doesn’t tell him that she gets to choose who.
Here goes.
She sees him only once in a while even though they live in the same building, but she doesn’t mind. She has long accepted that conventional relationships aren’t available to her and is content to just watch and admire that which is aesthetically pleasing. On the way to the bookstore to buy a text for a class she sees him sitting at a table alone. He’s eating slowly and staring at nothing, lost in his own thoughts. A strange fire sears behind her eyes, and she has to pause to let the vision play out.
“Hey, Chris.”
He blinks and almost drops a French fry. “Hi.” He fumbles for her name and she feels a flash of embarrassment. “Tess.” He always waves at her, but that obviously doesn’t mean anything.
She shifts her books against her hip and says, “How have you been?”
His wide-lipped smirk comes slowly, and with his wickedly-tilted green eyes he looks remarkably like the cat who’s had the cream. “I’ve been fine. Just been having late nights lately. You know what I mean.”
She does know – she’s seen him sitting out on the grass smoking his weird European cigarettes, and seen him dashing out to a friend’s car with a case of beer tucked under one arm.
He startles her by saying, “How about you?”
“Oh. The usual.” She hefts her pile of books. “Gotta go buy another textbook for that one killer theory class.”
Disinterest begins to glaze over his eyes, and she remembers that he’s not as focused on his schoolwork as she is on hers. It’s a pity, because he’s a smart boy. Light flares back to life in those eyes when she plops down opposite him abruptly.
“Anyway, Christian, I came here because I have a proposal for you.”
His eyebrows go up but his smirk stays the same; by now she knows that he is actually curious. “A proposal?”
“What I’m about to suggest isn’t quite dirty enough to be called a proposition,” she says, and is pleased when he sits back, studying her, intrigued.
“I’m listening.”
She tosses her head and sits up straight, looking more confident than she feels. “It goes like this: you have no girlfriend and wish to rid yourself of the juvenile admirers who run around campus. I haven’t had a relationship since Zeus knows when and it’s getting old. You aren’t the type for commitment and my classes don’t allow me much time to commit, so I offer a very low-maintenance relationship. If you want any sort of human comfort or casual company for one of your late nights, you know where to find me.”
He drums his long fingers on one knee for a moment. “That’s it?” he asks when she adds no more. “What’s in it for you?”
She scoops up her bag and rises calmly to her feet. “The simple pleasure of your company.” She walks away, leaving him surprised. The ball is in his court now. Let him think it over.
The headache fades and the sharp images are pushed aside. She considers going over to speak to him, but shakes her head and continues on her way to the store. He’ll be there when she passes back that way. If he’s not, it’s not the end of the world. She has always been pragmatic that way.
She spots him lounging on the grass outside the dorms, enjoying one of his strange cigarettes and debating the finer points of the falling of the Berlin Wall with a random associate. His long limbs are splayed casually, and he looks like a languid tiger basking in the sun. His long fiery hair is tied back with a yellow bandanna, and his mouth is pretty when he laughs. He calls out to her as she passes, asks what her night’s plans are in way of a greeting. A flash of satori burns through her mind before she can rouse herself to answer through the onslaught of images.
“Hello again, Tess.” A grey haze of smoke clouds his face like an unholy halo.
She pauses and just looks at him; he looks at her right back. “Christian. Good to see you again. Or do you prefer to be called Chris?”
“Chris is fine,” he says, and ashes his cigarette. His other friends watch her closely, and she wonders if this is what a gazelle feels like before lions strike for the kill. At least they stay silent, smoking their cigarettes and pretending indifference to her presence.
“Christian is too formal. I'm not a Christian,” he says, and his friends chuckle. She steps back when he pushes himself to his feet. She’s always known how lean he his but never realized how tall he is because he walks with a perpetual insouciant slouch. Now it seems as if he towers over her.
He smiles at her, cigarette dangling near his hip, and says, “I know you have homework tonight, because you always do, but I’ve considered your proposal, and our late nights begin long after you’ve finished studying. Fancy a spin?”
She says, “I’ll think about that spin part,” or at least tries, because suddenly she’s being kissed. Whoever says kissing a smoker is like kissing an ashtray has never kissed someone who smokes cloves. His mouth is warm and spicy and he catches her chin in his hand, leaning in to kiss her slowly, aggressively, and very thoroughly. When he pulls back his friends are smirking. Some are outright laughing, and she knows she must look very owlish, wide-eyed and surprised. He nods to his friends and they begin to drift slowly toward the doors to go inside.
“Think about that spin part.” He smirks, and then in a sudden gesture of tenderness reaches out to brush a strand of hair out of her face, cigarette dangerously close to her skin. He spins on his heel, grinds the cigarette out with the toe of his boot and heads inside, leaving the smell of smoke and cloves to swirl around her. When her friends catch up to her and ask what’s wrong, she realizes he’s one up on her again, that the ball is still in her court. He’s smarter than he acts.
The pain in her head subsides and she pauses to watch him. His green eyes are hidden behind dark sunglasses and she cannot read him now, not that she ever could before, and she wonders if he’s aware of the way her eyes follow him whenever he enters the room. She gives him the standard reply that she will be holed up in her room studying, but it’s not entirely true. She has extra work to do - wet work - and never enough time in which to do it. She continues on to her room and wonders when she’ll see him next – after all, he’s so hard to catch.
Sometimes she sits out on the grass to read in the sun. Somewhere she heard that it’s better to study in natural light. She sees other students try the same thing and laughs quietly to herself when they screech as their homework blows away. Most of her classes cover theoretical and abstract material and all she has to do is read, so she can sit out on the grass with a book and relax a little. If she relaxes too much the words on the page become a blur and she can’t understand them anymore, so she contents herself with the warmth of the sun and wishes that Jacques Derrida is more straightforward about anything and everything he writes. Some boys from Chris’s floor come stumbling by, laughing and sounding a little too drunk for how early in the day it is. She checks her watch and remembers that she’s already had supper. This is the tail end of summer and the sun still sets late in the evening; it’s not so early after all.
“Man, Mike is totally wasted. Wanna get Chris?” one of them says, and his friend snickers.
“Yeah. Get him. Let's split. Meet behind the high school.”
Tess wants to call out a warning, but by now she expects the pain and lets the strange pictures wash over her.
Mike, Lena, Dave and Tim are totally wasted and giggling manically. Lena and Dave are curled around each other and Tess is glad that they’re in the shadows because she can’t see Dave’s hands and she would rather not. Mike and Tim are fighting over the last can of beer, but Chris is sprawled next to her on the hard cement, smoking and gazing at the sunset.
“I told you we wouldn’t mind if you hid in the corner and studied,” he says.
She shrugs and slides her textbook back into her bag. “You’re pretty easy-going. I just wasn’t sure about them.” She nods at Mike and Tim who are now playing tug-o-war with the can and wonders if they can get any more juvenile.
“Ignore them,” Chris says, and kisses her.
She could really get used to his kisses but knows that she probably shouldn’t. He winds an arm around her waist and pulls her closer, and she doesn’t care if the others are watching. His hands are warm and his mouth is soft and she really should stop trying to think because she can’t do it anymore. A flash of fire sears across her forehead. Chris seems to sense her discomfort and pulls back, smoothing a hand over her hair gently like he did before, cigarette dangerously close to her skin.
“Are you all right?”
Red and blue lights dance behind her eyelids. She says, “We should get out of here. The cops are coming.” She scoops up Lena’s keys. “I’m the only one sober enough to drive.”
Chris is surprised at the seriousness of her tone but he nods and stands up. “Hey guys, we’re going.”
Lena and Dave take a moment to peel themselves apart, but then Lena starts cleaning up the beer cans. Tess sees how disheveled Lena is and lifts a hand to smooth down her own shirt, wondering if she looks the same way. Chris catches her by the elbow and steers her gently toward Lena’s car. He shepherds the rest of his friends in and makes sure they’re wearing seatbelts before he slides into the front seat beside Tess. As they pull out of the parking lot a police cruiser passes by. Its lights aren’t flashing and the officers inside look nonchalant enough. Tess smiles brightly and lifts a hand to wave, and the cruiser speeds up and pulls away.
Chris casts her a curious look out of the corner of his eye. Then he smirks, though the expression is less derisive and more fond, and says, “I guess you’re some sort of lucky charm.”
She shakes her head clear of the fire and images and goes back to her reading. She hates alcohol because she hates not being in control of her reflexes and senses. She is something of a control freak, even her friends will admit that, but she has to be if she wants to do her job and keep her life.
Chris strolls out of the doors five minutes later. He never seems to move at more than a casual stroll, but his long legs carry him quickly. He grins at her and lights up a cigarette.
“Hey Tess, you want to come out with us tonight?” He asks occasionally, but her answer is always the same.
“I don’t drink; I just study.”
He shrugs, because nothing fazes him, and heads to the car with his two friends in tow. She watches him go and wonders if tonight the cops will finally catch on.
Whenever she hears sirens rise in the night or students muttering about the drinking age being too high she wonders how it is that Christian hasn’t been caught yet, but she says nothing of it to him and goes on with her work. She has even more wet work to do and more often than not it causes a headache. Her friends gather in her room. They all study together even though none of them share a major; it’s easier to study if they can take a break every once in a while and chat. Tess is much less likely to start snoring over her criminal law book if someone is there to keep an eye on her. Late at night when they’re all asleep in their beds her real work begins, but they don’t need to know about that; they don’t need to know any of it. At least for them Tiresias is still a blind old man who pissed off the gods. For her, Tiresias is a young, solemn man in a pristine white suit who tells her who's going to die, and whether or not she'll facilitate the dying. Tess frowns at the facilitate coming on and braces herself for the tidal wave of sight and sound.
Someone knocks at the door. That isn’t the approved signal for friends who wish to gain entrance to the Study Lair. Tess frowns but calls out,
“Enter.”
The door swings open, and the others lift their heads. Chris stands in the doorway with books tucked under one arm.
“Hey. Thought I’d come join the study group.” He is careless of the way Steve and the others stare at him as he picks his way across the room and has the audacity to sit on the bed beside Tess. He cracks open his physics book and sets about reading. Steve raises his eyebrows at Tess, but she just shrugs and goes back to her reading. One by one the others do the same, and they all fall into a comfortable silence, although someone sneaks a curious glance at Chris every now and again. Tess can feel his warmth against her side and wonders if the others notice how close he’s sitting, or the way his elbow brushes hers as he turns a page. She sighs and leans into him slightly, enjoying the solidarity that comes with the warmth. Chris says nothing, merely keeps reading, and she smiles to herself, glad that he allows the contact. It seems that he needs human comfort at least as much as she does. A flash of fire sears across her forehead and she winces.
Steve looks up and asks, “Another migraine?”
That’s what they think the headaches are, simple migraines, but Tess knows better. Blind Tiresias has a job for her tonight, and he had to use a painful way of getting the message across. As the pain fades she hears the others whispering and sees that they’re gathering up their books.
“We’ll leave you be till the headache goes away,” Molly says.
Jenna pauses in the doorway and adds, “See you at dinner.”
Steve closes the door quietly after them. Tess can still feel Chris sitting beside her, but he’s not reading anymore – she can feel him looking at her.
“You get migraines?” he asks.
“From pressure changes in the weather,” she lies, because he is but a casual acquaintance and not even her closest friends know the truth.
He sets aside his book and raises one warm hand to the back of her neck, beginning to massage lightly. “Does this help?”
Tess nods, and this time it’s not a lie, so she curls against him and lets the sensations roll through her.
Her eyes are falling closed and she’s feeling more relaxed and then his mouth is on hers, soft but insistent and spicy like cloves. She can feel his heartbeat under one hand and his shirt is worn and fuzzy and warm from his body. He keeps one hand on the back of her neck, cradling her close, but the other arm around her waist holds her tightly.
She’s glad that the others decided to leave and wonders if he had anything to do with it.
When he pulls back he whispers, “This feels a little more than casual, doesn’t it?”
She’s afraid he’s right, but for the first time fear feels good.
Someone knocking on the door jerks her out of her reverie. That isn’t the approved signal for friends who wish to gain entrance to the Study Lair. Tess grants the person entrance anyway, and the five of them exchange exasperated looks. None of them like Kevin, but their subtle refusal of his company seems to have gone unnoticed. He hefts a textbook and grins.
“Hey, I’m here to study!”
There’s a bit of grumbling and shuffling as they make room for him on the furniture – two fit on the couch, two fit on the bed, and there are two chairs but Steve likes to sit on the floor. Tess nods; one of the girls rolls her eyes and pushes the door shut. Kevin attempts to talk, but the others resume their homework. He takes it in stride and opens his textbook, pretending to study.
Tess is thinking about going to the rave tonight and notices a dark-haired girl hanging off of Chris’s arm and wearing his long, dark green coat. Steve says she isn’t Chris's girlfriend. Molly notes rather disdainfully that it’s probably this week’s floozy. Tess agrees and goes back to her work. Chris is fun to look at, to observe. His sharp green eyes miss nothing and his hands, one ever adorned with a cigarette, are languid and expressive. He is tall and careless and confident and fills the space around him with raw, magnetic power. Tess knows she isn’t the only one to have noticed him; girls from the high school prowl around campus to get a good look at him as well. Tess knows that a boy like Christian would be no help to her or her cause, the cause of blind Tiresias and his damning promises. Jenna asks if Tess is going to the rave tonight and then comments rather slyly that perhaps Chris will be there. Molly frowns and comments that whether or not Chris goes, Kevin will be there and Tess shouldn’t go alone to such a place where she’ll have no back-up when Kevin decides to bother her. The world around her swims away as fire swirls around her mind.
Chris hates techno music, and he hates dancing even more, but it must be more than casual if he agrees to come. He stands on the edges of the dancefloor with one of his cigarettes, green eyes focused on her while she dances. He smirks every now and again, and she is bold enough to wink back. She feels a strange mix of powerful and powerless under his gaze, powerful because he can’t look away from her while she winds her body to the music, powerless because she cannot escape him. He seems to be enjoying the show well enough, but then the lights go down and Tess has to do what she must. She regrets that it has to be during her favorite song, Moonlight Shadow, but she has a job. When the lights go down and the rave lights go up is the best time for it. She can’t see Chris anymore; he ought to be all right on the edges of the dancefloor. He trusts her enough to take care of herself that he won’t come wading through the crowd for her. He hates crowds enough as well. She finds her target easily; the job will be over in an instant - and then the screaming starts. People press in on all sides and she’s forced with them. She fights back and eventually breaks through, and then she sees it. Amidst the flashing lights – why is Chris on the dancefloor? -she recognizes Kevin a moment too late, and then it’s like one of those old cartoons where the frames run too infrequently. She can see his finger squeeze the trigger six times as if in slow motion. The music is too loud for her to hear the gunshots, but Chris falls slowly and is on the ground by the time Tess reaches his side. He’s not moving. His eyes are open and surprised but quickly clouding over. It must be more than casual because Tess is on her feet, powerless and powerful all in one instant. Christian isn’t coming back and there’s nothing she can do, no way the warm wet sensation of blood on her hands will go away. The surprise on Kevin’s face is worth it when she breaks his arm in three places at once, forcing him to drop the gun, and then she has a knife at his throat, ready to make him pay for what he’s done. The target is gone and the job is botched, but Tess is still ready to fight. By the time the police arrive Chris’s body is cold and Kevin is out cold from shock. Tess doesn’t dare look back, but then she’s supposed to always look forward.
Next to them, Mike asks Tim if anyone thinks Chris will go, and Tess comes back to her senses with a painful jolt.
Tim shakes his head. “Naw, Chris wouldn’t do that sort of thing. Rave’s not his scene.”
“Not even for…her?” Mike can’t remember anyone’s name, not even his own on some days.
“Not for the girl-thing.” Tim says ‘girl-thing’ because the girl isn’t his girlfriend after all. “If she were more important to him maybe she could beg him into going, but Chris doesn’t go where he doesn’t want to go.”
Tess tosses the others a knowing look and hunches a little lower over her mythology book. Tiresias says only one man is dying tonight, and Tess, putting on her Cassandra mask, agrees. She doesn’t tell him that she gets to choose who.
