As unhappy as he seemed to be about the things I want to do over the weekend with his friend Randy, Aaron sure didn't dawdle when he was making all those things happen.
Shortly after curfew falls on Friday evening, I leave the circle of his arms and the warmth of his bed under the protective eye of passive cameras and walk down to Gemma's room to fetch Freya.
We're leaving the Hex for good tonight.
Usually when I pick Freya up from Gemma's, it's the middle of the night, and Gemma's been asleep for hours by the time I get there. Not tonight, though.
Gemma's awake, giggling behind her hand at an episode of Chuck that's playing on her portable TV while Freya dozes on her love seat in the corner.
"Dang, girl! You're here early!" she says. "What'd you do? Get in a fight with your boss? Sure hope you let him have it. Mmm-hmmm. Can't let 'em take nothin' they don't deserve."
"It's not like that, Gems," I say. I don't try too hard to shake her off the scent, that'll only make her suspicious. But she doesn't need to know any more details, either.
I glance around her room. Every time I'm in here, I check for creepy digital clocks, and so far she's managed to avoid the short-list. All she has is an old fashioned wind-up alarm clock on her night table beside her bed. I've stashed one of Aaron's sneaky super-spy cameras in her DVD player so I can watch Freya while she's over here, and so far, that appears to be the only watching that's going on.
"I'm taking Freya to him tonight," I tell her once I've established that the establishment doesn't have their long sticky fingers in Gemma's pie.
"Must be serious," Gemma says, eyeing me hard with her fierce indigo eyes. Gemma always says more with her eyes than she ever says with her mouth. I think that's why I always liked her better than the other girls who rolled with our group. Gemma's not a judger, but she's honest, and if a thing doesn't absolutely need to be said, she just keeps it shut away in her proverbial lock box.
I eye her back just as hard. "Yeah, well, I don't know if it's exactly like that, either."
Aaron's been freaking me out over the last couple of days. There was a brief shining moment when it felt like maybe it could get serious between us, but now I'm not so sure what it is. I asked him for this one favor with Randy – there are some things I need to know before we go to war with the Hex, and I need someone with medical expertise to tell me. Aaron doesn't seem to get that, though, and now he can barely look at me. He's arranged for me to have everything I want, exactly how I want it, but even as he's done that, it's seemed to pull him farther away from me.
I know I still love him, and that confuses me more than anything else. Maybe I'm like the "Daniel" in this relationship, and he just can't love me back the same way. Maybe neither one of us has a whole heart left to give the other. It's probably a good thing that we've never put a name to what our relationship is. Gemma calling it "serious" comes dangerously close to that.
"Oh, it's like something, Alecto," she says. "I'm not blind. I see you when you sneak in here all late to pick up Freya with your hot little blush and your hair all messy. I don't know what it is you're up to with him, but I'm sure the two of you aren't just playing tiddly-winks and tea party."
"Enh..." It's always handy to have a good-sized arsenal of non-committal noises tucked away in your belt for occasions like this.
"Don't get me wrong. I'm not asking what you do." She waves her hand through the air like she's wiping the slate clean. "Believe me, I probably do not want to know."
YOU ARE READING
Sleeping Dogs Lie
Teen FictionIn a world buried in perpetual winter, one girl makes a choice. A choice that will propel her and everyone she loves into a new world - a dangerous world. But this world is her destiny, for which she was groomed before she even knew what grooming wa...