Amaranthine

Chapter Fourteen

© Copyright 2011 

All work is property of Leah Crichton, any duplication or reproduction of all or part of the work without explicit permission by the author is illegal

Profession: (pruh-fesh-un)

act of professing; avowal, a declaration, whether true or false

I tried to sneak quietly into the house, but adrenaline pumped through my veins faster than I thought possible. My heart thrummed so hard I was sure it was going to burst. I tried to calm it, but every single time a memory of today—of him—flashed in my head it was useless, and I felt like my heartbeat was on a loud speaker, exposed for the world to hear. With a grin I couldn’t control, I moved up the stairs to my room and threw myself on the bed to lay there in his clothes. They smelled like him. I closed my eyes and imagined him there and longed to keep a piece of him with me. Could I "forget" to bring back his shirt?

I tried to wrap my head around the life I found myself living. Could any of it be real? Was I certifiable? Was I imagining everything? Maybe it was all a hallucination, a side effect of my accident.  Maybe it was one of Mona’s cruel tricks.  Would I go crazy wondering if I was going crazy?

The thoughts that swirled around inside my mind bothered me immensely and the sudden need to see him again, to hear him again, just to confirm my own sanity, was overwhelming. Against my better judgment I picked up the phone and dialed his number. I had no idea what I was going to say, but I waited while it rang. Orion had caller ID; when he picked up the phone it wasn’t a typical greeting. “Do you miss me?” He sounded pleased.

“Yes.” I searched my head for something to save me a little, something to make me sound a little less pathetic, as if such a thing existed. It must’ve been hiding out with what was left of my pride. “I wanted to say thank you for today. It was fun.”

“You phoned to say thank you?”

Stretching the truth was never one of my strong points, but since moving here I was honing the skill. “Yeah. I just wanted to talk to you some more.” This part was true. The other end of the phone went quiet, so quiet I thought maybe I’d scared him off. “Say something.”

“Something.” Orion’s voice was deep, barely a whisper, and the chills that it invoked covered my body. He was silent for a long moment. “I’m glad you called.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“Why?”

“Because I like talking to you,” he said, like the answer should be obvious. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Anything,” I said. “Can I be honest?” 

“I hope you would be.”

“I just wanted to hear your voice. That’s the only reason I called.” I felt ashamed, even behind the phone. What was I turning into? He hadn’t even been gone an hour.

“Hey, Tiger?” His laugh was gone, quashed by the deeper tone in his voice. 

“Yeah?”   

“You want me to come over? Then I can talk to you all night long, I mean, if that’s what you want.”

The implications of his offer raced through my mind, but I didn’t care. “Yes.” I thought about the sea of trouble I’d be navigating into if my mom, or worse, Luke, caught Orion here this late at night. 

Maybe I could hit the rewind button and take back my words.  But I didn’t want to; on the contrary, I would have willingly hit fast forward until he was here, then pause so he could never leave.