“I know you’re at school. I see you in music, which makes sense, because it’s the only class you pay attention in. But you’ve managed to sneak out of history how many times in the last week?”
“Keep your voice down,” I hissed. Addie and my father were both out, and Monty was napping, but my mom was only down the hallway, locked in her office. Despite the soundproof door, I was afraid her motherly instincts would kick in, and she’d overhear us.
He whispered, “Yesterday, I saw you take off before second period. You and Lee didn’t get back until the end of lunch.”
“Eliot,” I said. “You know his name. Use it.”
“Sorry. You and Eliot have been ditching all week. What’s your secret?”
“No secret,” I said, but his skeptical look told me he wasn’t buying it. We’d decided to check the other branches I’d worked on, taking readings for Eliot to analyze. “It’s different for you. You’re king of the mountain. People are always watching. But they don’t look twice when I walk in. Easy to slip out again when no one notices you.”
“I notice you,” he protested.
Wanting to believe something doesn’t make it true, the same way wanting someone doesn’t make them yours.
“Really? Did you know my name before this project? I’ve known you since grade school. We’ve had classes together for three years in a row, but you had no idea who I was until Powell paired us up.”
“Were you waiting for a formal introduction?” he said irritably. “It’s not like you make it easy. You walk in every day with a scowl on your face, you only talk to Eliot, and half the time, you’re cutting class. You’re busting your ass to convince everyone you don’t give a damn. Want to know what I think?”
I flushed. “No.”
“I think you do care, and it scares you. So you try to scare them off instead.”
“This is a music assignment, not a psych class. We’re done.” Had I wanted him to notice me? I was an idiot. I laid my violin in its case and snapped the latches shut. The skin between my thumb and index finger caught in the brass fitting, and I swore.
“You’re scared,” he repeated. “I get it.”
“You really don’t,” I said, stung by the accusation and unsettled by the truth behind it. I rubbed at the welt on my thumb, blinking rapidly.
Walkers were encouraged to stay as separate from Originals as possible. We dedicated our lives to something they couldn’t comprehend. And if I couldn’t be a part of the Originals’ world, if I was meant for something else, it was easier to tell myself I never wanted it in the first place.
I’d believed it too, until Simon came along.
“Let me see your hand,” he said, crossing the room. The air felt charged, vibrating with possibility. It happened sometimes, right before a pivot formed, as if the fabric of the world recognized what was coming.
Must be nice.
“You’re as bad as I am,” I said.
He turned my hand palm up, examining where the latch had caught my skin. “People like me, if you haven’t noticed. No offense.”
“People adore you. Talk about busting your ass—you’re on a mission to charm every person who comes within a five-foot radius. You keep back anything that might make them pity you. That might scare them away.” I shook my head. “Isn’t it exhausting?”
“Not as exhausting as being relentlessly cranky.” He was edging toward cranky now, judging from his grip on my hand.
“It’s more than wanting to be popular, isn’t it? You need everybody to think you’re great, because if they didn’t . . . what? What might happen?”
He stared at me, as unhappy as his Doughnut-World Echo the other night. I believe you’re awesome at leaving. The answer slipped out before I could stop it. “You think they’ll leave.”
“People leave,” he said, a sudden bleakness in his expression. “They leave all the time.”
“And you’re knocking yourself out so they’ll stay.”
A muscle in his jaw jumped. “You don’t know that.”
“I’ve watched you for three years,” I said. “I’m pretty confident.”
“Three years?” He raised his eyebrows. “Long time to watch someone.”
“I wasn’t . . .”
“Watching me?”
Damn it. My cheeks went hot as he lifted my hand to his mouth. My voice was so soft I could barely hear myself say, “Let go.”
“I don’t think so.” The light in his eyes, intent and amused, made me edgy.
“Let me go.”
“Or what? You don’t scare me, Delancey Sullivan.” He pressed a kiss squarely in the center of my palm. A shock ran through me, every single nerve in my body crackling to life. “Better?”
Words fled. Reason fled. I nodded, and he bent his head down, his mouth inches from mine.
The back door slammed.
“Del! Check it out!” Eliot called, his words carrying down the hall. He stopped short when he spotted Simon. “What’s he doing here?”
“Wondering why Del doesn’t have better locks,” Simon muttered, dropping my hand. Then, more loudly, “Powell’s project.”
“Great,” Eliot said, making it very clear he considered this anything but. “I have something you should see.”
I knew better than to ask if it could wait. Already Simon was pulling on his coat.
“No problem,” he said. “I’ve got to get home anyway.”
I followed him out to the hallway. “Simon . . .”
“Tomorrow,” he said. But there was promise in it, and enough heat to make my knees wobble, and I held on to the doorframe as he jogged down the front steps to a red Jeep across the street.
He was going to kiss me. I’d felt the pivot form in the instant before his lips brushed my palm, and it was still there, tantalizingly close. I could cross over and kiss him back.
I wasn’t even remotely tempted. Walking to that Echo and kissing Simon would be no different from any of the other times I’d interacted with his Echoes. And suddenly it didn’t feel like enough. I wanted this one. The real one.
The knowledge made my knees buckle again. I’d told myself making out with his Echo and befriending his Original was enough. Now I had the chance for more. I had a chance at everything.
Until Eliot scared him off.
“Knocking,” I said, stomping back in. “Have you heard of it?”
“Self-control,” he shot back. “Have you?”
He looked angry. Really angry—the cords in his neck standing out, his hand clutching a sheaf of papers so tightly they crumpled. It wasn’t like him. Eliot was the good-natured, even-tempered one, and I’d managed to royally piss him off twice in one month. I thought back to our previous fight, the strange, icy tension between us, and my stomach clenched. I didn’t want that again, so I dragged in a breath, let it out, and carefully closed the piano lid.
“I’m using it right now,” I said, keeping my voice even instead of snarky. “What’s wrong?”
“We need to talk.”
I couldn’t stay in the music room and talk with Eliot—not with the pivot of Simon’s almost-kiss hovering like a ghost. “Can we talk and eat? I’m hungry.”
Eliot followed behind, papers in his hand. I grabbed a pear from a green ceramic bowl and bit in.
“Talk,” I said through a mouthful of fruit. There was no reason for me to feel guilty. The most Eliot would have seen was the two of us standing together. Close together. Simon’s hand cradling mine, our mouths inches apart.
Eliot had seen plenty.
“You promised you wouldn’t go out on your own,” he said, his words like knives. “You’ve been cleaving worlds.”
It was the last thing I expected him to accuse me of. “You’re insane. I’ll be happy if I never cleave another world again.”