Everything That Makes You(37)

       

"Jesus, Fi." Jackson flopped backward in the grass with a groan. "What do you want from me here?"

Marcus would have answered. He would have talked for hours about all of  this with her, analyzing all the philosophical angles. "I want you to be  him."

"Well, he's dead." Jackson stood up from the grass. Bits of it stuck to his holey, worn jeans. "I'm not a substitute."

That's obvious. "What are you then?"

Jackson shook his head and turned. He spoke over his shoulder as he  walked away. "Just a bitter, alive guy without his freaking twin."





FIONA


Fiona was looking out the common room window. The sky was a smooth,  cloudless blue, and the trees stood perfectly upright. Usually, the wind  blew them around so wildly, they might javelin themselves through the  window.

"You're not coming home?" her mother was asking, over the phone.

"Everyone else has a different spring break. No one will be in town."

"Your father and I will be here."

As tempting as that sounds . . .

A few weeks ago, she'd had the same conversation with David, only he was  asking her to visit UT. "I can't afford a ticket," she'd said. If she  wasn't going home, her dad sure wasn't going to fly her to Knoxville to  see her boyfriend.

"I could come to Chicago," he'd said. "During my break. We could see a  Cubs game. Try that stuffed pizza you talked about over Christmas."

"Yeah, you'd like it."

"Great. So, should I buy the ticket?"

"Sure," she'd said, wishing she felt more enthusiastic about the idea. "That'd be fun."

She hadn't shared David's travel plans with her mother, who was still  complaining, long distance. "You're just going to stay up there, alone?"

"Lots of people are staying on campus," Fiona said. Jackson, for example.

"I wanted to take you shopping."

Good Lord, the woman had a one-track mind. "I have plenty of clothes."

"Everything has holes. It looks ratty."

"I'm in college, Mom. No one cares how I dress."

"You should care," she said. "You have so much to show off now."

Translation: You really looked like crap before. "Mom, will you just give it a rest?"

"Watch the tone, young lady." After an uneasy pause, her mom added, "I  didn't push you before, because you were self-conscious. But now, I  don't see why-"

"You didn't push me?" Fiona gave a bitter laugh. "Are you kidding?"

"I'm sorry?"

"You've been trying to improve me since I was five."

"I am your mother," her mother said. "It's my job to make your life better."

"Make me better, you mean."

"I didn't say that."

"You didn't need to. You've had thirteen years to make it clear."

"Fiona, what on earth are you talking about?"

As her mom spoke, Jackson walked in. He leaned against the common room  wall, watching her. She must have looked as angry as she felt, because  after a second he mouthed, The best friend?

How many of her dramatic moments was this boy going to witness?

"Forget it. I gotta go," Fiona said-and then she hung up on her mother.  She stabbed the phone's off button and threw it to the couch across the  room.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"My mother. She drives me crazy."

"It's fifty degrees outside." He pointed out the window. "That should cure you of just about any negative emotion."

"It's not even windy," she said, like it was the weather curing her-and  not Jackson, standing there, looking adorable. He wasn't bundled up,  just in a long-sleeved Henley and those jeans she coveted.

"I'm giddier than a twelve-year-old girl at a boy band concert," he said.

"That one actually made sense," she said.

"We should go out before the arctic tundra returns." He held out a hand, hoisting her up.

Mother, shmother. Grabbing a fleece, she followed him down the stairs and into the unseasonably balmy weather.

They walked side by side on the crowded campus path, squeezing close  together since lots of other people had the same idea. Jackson suggested  they head to the lake.

"What's the update on your music class?" he asked.

"It's my turn on Friday." This was the last thing she wanted to talk about.

"So that's great, right? Finally get to show off your stuff?"                       
       
           



       

"It's going to be awful." Fiona nearly threw up when Weitz handed out the performance date. February 27.

Jackson nudged her in the side. "Man, you're dramatic about this whole  thing. It's just a bunch of other students and a professor. How bad  could it be?"

"The class is sadistic-and the professor isn't that much better. Last  class two people played. She called the pianist's arrangement  ‘sophomoric' and told the girl on guitar to keep working and perhaps  she'd stumble onto something worthy of revision."

Jackson snorted. "Statistics doesn't look so bad now, huh?" Then he  spread his arms toward the beach in front of them. "I gotta say, before I  got here I was skeptical about the whole beach in Chicago thing. But  when it's not subzero outside, it's pretty awesome."

"It's a nice perk." Fiona took in the view-clean beach with a blue lake so big, it looked like ocean.

He walked onto the sand, stopping a few yards away from the line where  wet met dry, and sat down. Looking over his shoulder, he patted the  space beside him.

She sat next to him, arms wrapped around knees, but eventually both lay  back, heads only inches apart in the sand. He smelled like some  combination of wool, coffee, and soap-and just the littlest bit of  fruit.

Fiona closed her eyes and willed her fair skin to soak up the vitamin D.  She wondered if her new skin would color the same as her old skin.  She'd never even thought to ask the doctor.

She turned her head toward Jackson and was surprised to see him lying on  his side, elbow propped up in the sand. He was looking at her, his head  resting in his hand. For a moment, that's all they did-lay there and  stare. A border of deep cobalt blue rimmed his green irises. His jaw and  cheekbones looked sculpted, like they belonged on a statue in a museum  somewhere, not on a boy who was looking at her like that.

God, but he was beautiful.

After a time, Jackson lifted his free hand and slowly ran a finger under  the length of her scar-from the space between her right eyebrow and  nose, up her forehead, then repeating the path from under her right ear,  up to the outside corner of her right eye.

She didn't speak, her breath unsteady from watching him, from feeling the gentle weight of his finger against her face.

The circuit complete, he gently rested his palm on her cheek and began  tracing the scar once more-this time with his thumb on the new skin.

Under the gentle weight of his thumb, her skin felt tingly. Like a foot that had fallen asleep and was 90 percent awake again.

Oh. Oh.

She could feel it.

She could feel it.

Her whole body tensed at the sensation. His gaze moved from her skin to  her eyes. His palm still rested on her cheek, and his thumb rubbed  lightly back and forth against the actual scar line. "Go out with me,"  he said.

"We are out." Her voice came out as husky as his, like they were in a crowded library, not alone on the beach.

"Out out. Friday night, after you play." He smiled, leaning in a little closer. "We'll toast the standing ovation."

She frowned at this reminder. "More like drink away my sorrows."

"Or that." He leaned closer and said again, "Go out with me."

Fiona's previously-numb-and-now-tingling skin screamed yes! Her heart  and spine, her muscles and bones and nerves-all her real, tangible  pieces pushed her toward yes. But her invisible parts-those bits that  felt guilty when she actually enjoyed herself; that chunk of her that  knew what Friday held in store-answered first. "I'm not sure-"

Jackson interrupted her, shaking his head but not taking his hand from  her face. "Look, I get it. You've got some complications. Go out with me  anyway."

Fiona swallowed her fears and guilt and nodded. Jackson smiled. She  smiled back. And then they were covered in the sudden, cold shadow of an  enormous, fluffy cloud.

"They look so harmless up there, don't they?" Jackson said, looking up at the single cloud blocking all the sun.

Fiona wanted to spend hours out here with Jackson, but instead she stood and held out a hand. "We should get back anyway."

It felt fifteen degrees colder on the way back. Both walked hunched over  with hands crammed into pockets. The pace was faster than on the way  out-their bodies a little closer, too.

Jackson cracked jokes as they went, coming up with stranger and stranger  suggestions for their date. Dinner was too predictable, what about  visiting the International Museum of Surgical Science? Trying to climb  the Bean in Millennium Park? Throwing plates at a restaurant in  Greektown?