Never Sweeter(4)

And these were not the best of times. The ancient mattress creaked when she inched toward the edge. Every attempt at sliding her legs off the bed made the cheap sheets rustle and crackle like a brown paper bag. Even her feet against the tile seemed loud.

Anything more and he was bound to wake upit seemed like a miracle that he hadn’t already. She was breathing too hard. She must have whimpered, at least, yet when she checked he looked exactly as he had a minute ago. Chin on his chest, eyes closed, oblivious.

And he stayed that way as she tugged on the rest of her clothes.

First the jeans, then her socks, and finally her sweater.

Good as new.

Apart from the sense that all of this was a mistake. She had been knocked unconscious. It was entirely possible a doctor was supposed to see her. Staying seemed like the wisest course of actionor at least it did whenever she couldn’t see Tate. When she glanced back at him she didn’t feel troubled about fleeing.

She only felt a rising balloon of relief inside her.

This time, she had escaped him for sure. He was actually snoring as she slipped through the door and out into the hallway. There was no chance in hell that he would stop her.

No chance at all.

No way.

Impossible.

“Hey, Letty!”

Her hand was actually on the handle of the nearest fire exit when she heard Tate’s voice. The door was open a crack, and she could see daylight beyond. A little more and she would have been through. She could have pretended him hollering at her was some guys playing Frisbee just beyond them. Just could have kept going until she was free and clear.

She almost did anyway. The temptation to was so all consuming it seemed to burn as it went through her. It made her eyes stingthough that might have been something else. Four years of frustrated, bitter rage pushing against them, maybe. Certainly it was something she had to contain before she could turn around and take him in.

But years of practice had made her good at it. She gritted her teeth and looked up at the ceiling for a good thirty seconds, and the sensation passed. By the time she faced him her eyes were as dry as they had ever been. Her face was that carefully constructed blank slate, as though he bored her to death.

And she held it, despite the things he had to say.

“That nurse said you were supposed to stay overnight,” Tate told her. “She said you needed to restyou can’t just run out on serious medical business.”

She thought at first that she had misheard. There was barely an insult in there. He didn’t smirk while he spoke. Plus, what was that whole medical business remark about? He sounded like somebody’s dad.

If somebody’s dad knew absolutely nothing about science.

“So this is what you’re going with,” she said. “Faking weird concern to lure me in.”

“No. No not at all. Who would even do that?”

To his credit, Tate managed to laugh.

The problem was, the laugh had no substance. It puffed out of him like a dying breath.

“You would. You actually did do that.”

“Name one time I did that.”

“How about the time I was carrying textbooks for Merriman and you asked if I was sure I could manage? Then you threw them in the fountain outside the science block.”

“Oh, okay, yeah, my bad. But apart from that one tiny incident of book destructionof books I might add that were not even yours.”

“Then there was the time the books were mine,” Letty continued. “Only you thought a fitting place for them was a toilet in the boys’ bathroom. Then when they wouldn’t flush you doused them in lighter fluid and set them alight.”

“I…damn it, all right. But that was years ago; you can’t hold something against me I did as a kid. But this is differentyou could go back to your dorm and start bleeding out of your eyeballs. I have, like, a civic responsibility to make sure you don’t.”

“Are you serious with this shit? Who do you think I am, exactlysome kid fresh off the school bus? I know you, Tate. I know you better than your own mother probably does. I had to know you to survive high school. Do you get that?” She shook her head, surprised to find something like weary amusement in her voice. “Civic responsibility? Jesus, if you had even an ounce of anything like that in your whole meaty body you would have checked on me in the hospital last time.”

He started to answer, but something seemed to pull him up short. More than that, in fact. It robbed his features of all animation. It took his half smile and the pretend concern, and replaced it with an odd kind of closedness. Like his face was a book and someone had just slammed it shut.

“I really didn’t think you’d want me around last time.”

“But you think I want you around now? After you drop me on my ass?”