Lost: A New Adult Contemporary Romance Part 4

My nerves stand on edge at her tone. I don't like being scolded any more than I like being around guys. Instead of answering, I reach into the bowl and toss her a red-foiled kiss. She deftly s.n.a.t.c.hes it out of the air with one hand without taking her eyes off me.

"Seriously. I'm worried about you," she says quietly. She unwraps the foil as she scoots closer to me on the couch.

"Tina, stop it. You don't have to worry about me all the time," I protest, and to my surprise, she almost loses it.

"Yes I do! I totally have to worry about you!"

I sense something strange-something scared-hiding in the back of her voice that I haven't heard in years. She's actually worrying herself into hysteria over me.

"Maria, you're all I have left! Of course I'm worrying about you," she continues, barely holding herself together. This is how I knew I could trust her, why I was able to tell her about Darren in the first place.

Tina is more than just a friend; she actually loves me. I'm all the family she has left.

"Tina, I'm sorry. I really am. I'm just..."

I run out of words. I don't know how to tell her that my nightmares are getting worse, or that something inside me snapped when I tried to hand in that test. How do I tell her something like that? I've only met Owen one time and I can't get him out of my mind!

She stares at me for a long time and then throws me another chocolate. I miss it completely and have to go hunting for it under the sofa while she laughs. She picks a dust bunny out of my bangs as I come back up again.

"Maria... I want you to trust me and promise you won't kill me for what I'm about to tell you, okay?"

"Why should I promise that? Maybe it's something worth killing you over," I answer, only halfway joking.

"Seriously. Promise me."

I stare at her in silence, and she finally stops waiting for my promise and spills the beans.

"I told Craig that we'd both go skiing with him next weekend, and that you'd absolutely come along."

"You told a guy that I'd go out skiing with him?" I gasp, gaping at her as if she has three heads.

"No, I told a guy that we'd go out skiing with him. Not you, we!" she protests.

"I don't want to go anywhere with a guy, and that's with or without you!"

"Darren was seven years ago! You have to move on and rebuild. You have to be able to deal with guys if you're going to make it outside of..."

"Easy for you to say! He didn't rape you!" I hiss, practically spitting poison and shaking in fury and fear.

"I'm sorry," whispers Tina, trying desperately to take back her words, but I'm too upset to stop. I'm terrified of what I might say, but I have no control over myself now.

"You didn't spend the last seven years of your life trying to get better! n.o.body told you that it was your fault. n.o.body thinks you're some stupid f.u.c.king s.l.u.t!"

"Maria, I didn't mean..."

"No! You think you understand me, and why? Because your mom forgot about you?"

I gasp as the words come out of my mouth, and I cover my face as a horrible feeling of guilt crashes down on me. How on earth could I have said that?

I can see the hurt on her face. I might as well have stabbed her.

"Oh G.o.d, I'm so sorry," I whisper. "I'm so, so sorry."

Tina's mother has early-onset Alzheimer's dementia, and the poor girl's been forced to watch the mother she loved fade a little more every year. By the time she went home for winter break during our freshman year, her mother didn't even remember her.

Tina never goes home anymore.

I feebly try to offer her a chocolate but there are some things that even kisses can't fix and words can't be taken back. I even blurt out that I'll go skiing with her, but it won't put those hateful, horrible words back in my mouth again.

She starts to cry, and I know that in about five seconds I'm going to start too.

Wednesday, February 20 3:45 PM.

Owen.

"And for this next part, there were a bunch of ways you could set up your hypothesis grid. I'm only going to cover one of them, but go ahead and bring up your questions after cla.s.s if you did it differently."

The dry-erase marker squeaks as I sketch out the answer to the last question of the test. Only two students out of the twenty in my section got it right, and when I glance over my shoulder, only one of those two is even paying attention to me.

Maria's head is down and she's scribbling something in a notebook. I can't tell what it is from all the way up here, but I don't plan to call her out on it-not with how nervous she gets.

I turn back to the board, but as I'm about to finish explaining the solution, I feel as if I'm being stared at. Of course I'm being stared at-I'm the teacher. It's part of my job, so why do I suddenly feel so awkward about it?

The feeling grows stronger and stronger as I try to finish off the question until I just can't handle it anymore. I cut myself off and spin around just in time to see Maria's head jerk down and hide behind her notebook again.

"Sorry... lost my train of thought," I stammer to the rest of the startled cla.s.s, and I bury my face in my lecture notes and pretend I'm trying to figure out where I was. I suddenly can't focus on anything and my thoughts refuse to turn into coherent sentences. There's a whole cla.s.sroom full of people waiting impatiently for me to teach them, and here I am trying to make my brain work correctly! Some teacher I am.

I take a deep breath, turn back around, and finish off the problem.

"I have to do this. This is my job. Stop thinking about her."

I can't stop, of course. I'm staring at the whiteboard, but all I'm seeing is Maria hunched over her notebook.

I glance over my shoulder again, intending to check for raised hands but instead gazing directly at Maria. Her gorgeous black hair is tied back in a ponytail, and she's taken her coat off today. She's wearing a gray sweats.h.i.+rt from Cornell's freshman orientation, and she couldn't have picked a baggier, worse fitting s.h.i.+rt if she'd tried.

As I turn back to the whiteboard, it suddenly hits me that she did try. She's trying her hardest not to draw attention. She'd make herself completely invisible if she could.

"Okay folks, that's it for the test and for cla.s.s today too," I call out, boxing the final answer on the board before turning back around. "If you have any questions, come talk to me after cla.s.s or send me an e-mail. Either way's fine."

I sit at the front of the room in my uncomfortable plastic chair and watch as my students pour out of the cla.s.sroom. n.o.body ever stays after cla.s.s to ask me questions; they all just go straight to the professor. I don't think they realize that he just forwards their questions to me anyway.

Maria gets up to follow the crowd out the door and my eyes instantly lock onto her. Baggy sweats.h.i.+rts can hide a lot, but not even the ratty, faded black jeans she's wearing can hide legs like hers.

She follows behind the rest of the crowd toward the door, and I can't help but follow her long, slender legs as she crosses the room. I wonder if she knows that she sways her hips as she walks. It's absolutely mesmerizing.

"Hey, Maria?"

I immediately panic as the words come out of my mouth. Why did I do that? I don't have anything to tell her! s.h.i.+t, she's looking at me, and I...

...I'm speechless.

I have absolutely nothing to say as those beautiful green eyes of hers pull me in. Between the gorgeous black hair, pale skin, and those incredible eyes of hers, I'm absolutely speechless.

"Yes?" she asks apprehensively, and I cobble together the first sentence I can think of as I break free of her spell.

"Good job on the test. I... I just wanted to tell you."

Her eyes are dark with distrust, and she hesitates before answering me.

"Thanks," she finally says, and then she turns and hurries out the door.

After the last student finally leaves, I bang my head on the table and groan in embarra.s.sment. That's not what I wanted to tell her at all. I never meant to call out to her in the first place, but whatever it was that I wanted to say, the test had nothing to do with it!

Now that she's gone, I can think of all sorts of things to tell her. I could tell her how d.a.m.ned beautiful she is and how I can't get her out of my mind. I could ask her why she's so scared of me.

All I'd do is scare her even more, though. It'd be horrible of me to hurt her like that.

h.e.l.l, if I'm going to hurt her, I might as well get it out of the way and tell her how I wish I'd never met her.

I wish I'd never met her because she reminds me of my sister, and no matter how much Samantha's memories come alive-no matter how much I suffer from them-I'll still never get to make it up to her.

Wednesday, February 20 4:00 PM.

Maria.

I usually hang around the library and study after cla.s.s if I'm not meeting Tina somewhere, but today I head straight home. That short, pointless conversation with Owen rattled me badly, but it's different this time from when I gave him my test.

I'm not scared or upset at him-I'm upset at myself.

I rush from my last cla.s.s-a pointless metaphysics course I'm only taking for easy credits-to the long suspension bridge across the west gorge. My apartment complex is across the bridge and down the icy hill on the far side.

The bridge creaks in the strong wind and even though I know it's perfectly safe, I'm still nervous. As I reach the middle, I stop and stare down into the gorge far below. A thick sheath of ice coats the bottom, and four-foot-long icicles hang precariously from the steep cliff face. The wind picks up, and an icy blast chills me even through my thick winter coat. It's really cold today, and I need to get moving. I still don't have winter boots and my toes are going numb.

I stare down into the gorge for just a moment longer, thinking about Owen. I'm about as clueless as someone can be-though my age of true naivete ended when I was fifteen-and even I could tell that Owen got fl.u.s.tered when he tried to talk to me. He acted just as I would have; he tried to talk to me, got too nervous and fell flat on his face.

What did he want to say to me? Did he even know? Somehow, I wasn't certain that he knew at all. He just... wanted to talk to me.

Then why am I angry with myself? I feel like I'm missing something important here, but I can't figure out what it is. Maybe that's what I'm so angry about-that no matter how many answers I know on tests, I can't figure out how to be a normal girl again.

G.o.d, I'm so confused.

My teeth start to chatter and I start walking again. I cram my muddled thoughts into a box and throw them into a dark corner of my mind for now. I can't make any sense of them while I'm feeling like this, and they'll still be there when I get home.

I make my way carefully down the steep, icy sidewalk on the side of the hill and then down the long staircase to my apartment. Rock salt crunches loudly beneath my snow-soaked sneakers and my fingers burn as I clutch tightly to the freezing cold railing.

My apartment is at the far end of the bottom row of units, and with a quick twist of the key, I'm inside and warm again.

Tina waves to me from the couch as I kick off my shoes and unzip my coat.

"Hey Maria! Glad you're back. I wanted..."

"Not now," I interrupt as I march straight through the kitchen and up the stairs to my bedroom. "Sorry, give me a few minutes. I'll be right back."

"But..."

"Tina, please!"

I run straight into my room and lock the door behind me. I know I'm being rude to Tina, but I need to get my thoughts in order. The only way I know to do it-the only way I can understand what I'm feeling-is to write them down while they're still fresh in my mind.

I pull back the comforter on my bed, reach under the pillow, and pull out my thick, leather-bound diary. My old Hobbit bookmark guides me quickly to the first empty page, and I plop down in the middle of the carpet and start to write.

I tried to watch Owen for the entire cla.s.s today. Even trying as hard as I could, I still had to look away whenever he turned to me. I can't do it! I just can't keep my eyes on him. I'm scared around guys in general, but I'm even more scared of him. I feel horrible when he looks at me, and I don't know why!

What's weirder to me is that I like looking at him. Do I actually think he's cute? Then why am I scared of him?

Every single time he turned around, I got scared and hid in my notebook, pretending to study.

Then, when I got up to leave after cla.s.s, he tried to talk to me. I reacted exactly as I always do: I felt embarra.s.sed, terrified, and ashamed that I couldn't get myself to say anything. All my words ran away from me, and I hate it so much. I'm just happy I didn't start crying from frustration today; that only makes it worse.

Today, though, Owen didn't have words either! He called to me, and then completely lost his nerve. I'm totally sure that's what it was; I've done it before-set myself up for embarra.s.sment like that-and I recognize it when I see it.

I don't know what to do. I can't talk to him without freaking out, and now I think he's cute? Tina tells me that liking someone makes it even harder to talk to him, too.

What if I really do like him? How do I even know if I like him?

I sigh and take a deep breath as I draw a line under the entry, but then I shake my head, scribble out the line and keep writing.

I'm afraid that I'll like him and he'll end up like Darren. Tina loves the idea of me going places with guys, but she doesn't understand how fragile I am. I'm trying so hard, but I'm scared to death! I'm not very strong, and I'm afraid that I might break completely if it happens again.

When I draw the line this time, I know I'm done with the entry. I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

"Man, I'm in so much trouble," I whisper as I slowly let the breath out.

I have one more thing I need to write before I can go talk to Tina, but I need to get my other book for it. The diary returns to its safe, secret place underneath my pillow, and out comes the ragged, green spiral notebook from underneath my mattress.

The jagged, harsh black lettering on the cover-drawn in marker by me five years ago-reads "The Book of Nightmares."